


Filling in the Blanks

by thecomebackkidd



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Episode Related, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:14:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27616076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecomebackkidd/pseuds/thecomebackkidd
Summary: All Leslie knew was that these state auditors coming was going to change everything in her world.This story explores the scenes we didn't get to see on screen and how the characters felt internally during the scenes we did see. Follows the show's timeline exactly.
Relationships: Andy Dwyer/April Ludgate, Ann Perkins/Chris Traeger, Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 21
Kudos: 35





	1. The Master Plan

**Author's Note:**

> So after months of reading lots and lots of Parks fanfic, I decided that it was time to try my hand at this. I know there have been stories over the years that filled in missing pieces that we didn't get to see on screen but I wanted to create a full, complete, episodic story that goes through each episode starting at "The Master Plan." I also wanted to provide insights into what I believe the characters, particularly Ben and Leslie, were thinking during each scene. I am really excited about this story and hope people will enjoy it as well. Obviously, I do not own the show or characters in any way and any dialogue from the episodes that I used does not belong to me. Please comment and follow along on this story!

“Ben Wyatt, you are literally the exact person I needed to see at this exact moment!” Chris beamed as he walked into his and Ben’s shared office, carrying two padfolios under his arm.

Ben looked up from his work and nodded politely at Chris, waiting for him to continue what he had come in here to say. Typically Chris’ enthusiasm was a fairly welcome addition to their long, grueling and unpleasant days as state auditors, but Ben had just finished up finalizing Snerling’s new city budget after working almost sixteen hours straight. 

“I just heard from George up at the state office and they have our next assignment.” Chris continued, handing Ben one of the padfolios under this arm. Ben took it hesitantly, getting a new assignment always caused him anxiety whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not. He flipped it open to see an official letter from the state house announcing that he and Chris would be heading a small town in Southern Indiana called Pawnee.

“Pawnee?” Ben asked flatly. “I’ve never heard of it.” 

“Oh neither have I.” Chris laughed, taking a swig out of his massive 96 oz water bottle that he carried around with him wherever he went. “But I am sure that it will be absolutely lovely. It has a very rich history from what I’ve speed read online while walking up here.”

Ben nodded again in acknowledgment but continued to scan the letter until he got to the part he was looking for, the town’s current debt. His eyes nearly popped out of his head and he had to rub his eyes for a moment to make sure he was seeing the right number. Sure enough he was.

“Wow, this is probably one of our worst ones yet.”

“Oh, I know. It is going to be terribly depressing.” Chris said. “But if anyone can handle it, it’s us.” 

Ben smiled weakly in fake agreement. He was not looking forward to this at all.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Leslie’s heart had not stopped racing since Paul had announced that the master plan proposal meeting had been put on hold for the time being. She partly blamed it on her typical pre-meeting adrenaline that had now gone unused due to the meeting’s cancellation, but it was mostly because what this cancellation meant. 

State auditors were coming. And as Ron had pointed out to her, they outranked everyone else in the building. She could very quickly feel herself losing control of the Parks department and the whole world felt like it was tumbling down around her. 

She paced nervously through the center of the office, hands shaking and mind racing. She really should not have had that extra large mocha latte with four shots of espresso and extra whip cream this morning in prep for her meeting. And she really really should not have had a second one once she got back from the meeting. 

“Well Paul just called, they’re on their way.” Ron said, entering the room, rubbing his hands together looking like he was about to go have a five course steak dinner in the conference room. 

Leslie wanted to slap the joy off his face almost as badly as she didn’t want to be in this situation at all. The minute these two auditors walked in, everything was going to change.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Well I think that that went extremely well.” Chris beamed as he and Ben continued their tour of Pawnee City Hall. 

Ben looked at him incredulously, wondering if Chris had just been in the same meeting as him. The meeting Ben was in had ended with the two animal control department heads trying to offer him pot in exchange for not cutting their jobs. 

“They just were trying to offer us a welcome gift.” Chris laughed, happily. 

Ben rolled his eyes and took a moment to really look around the hallway they were in. Pawnee’s City Hall seemed to look like just about every other Indiana City Hall he had been to over the past twelve years. Except for maybe the extremely graphic murals all over the place.

“Where to next?” Chris asked.

“Uh…the Parks department.” Ben said, mentally reading down the list he had been keeping in his head. He grabbed his padfolio out of his briefcase and began to flip through it to find the document he was given on the Parks budget and was surprised to see that it was roughly twenty pages long. When he had received this packet earlier in the day from Paul, the city manager, he had assumed it was the budget document for the entire city. Printed at the very top of the first page was the phrase “Part One of Sixteen.” Good lord…

“Excellent!” Chris exclaimed, startling Ben who was already a little jumpy from first day jitters. “We should do a brisk jog there.” 

He took off down the hallway at a speed that most people would define as sprinting leaving Ben in his dust. 

When Ben finally caught up, Chris was standing in front of an open double door, jogging in place. He sighed deeply, Chris’ energy exhausting him and silently praying this was going to be a quick and easy conversation. It was just the Parks department, he figured they had to have some level of self-awareness of how insignificant their department was. 

Chris lead the way into the bright office, exclaiming, “Hello, hello?” and stopping to ask two very terrifying people standing in the doorway how they were. Ben moved cautiously away from them as he entered the room. Chris was excitedly rushing towards a burly mustached man and a small blonde woman with the excitement of a golden retriever puppy and greeting them happily.

“Chris Traeger. This is Ben.” He said, pointing to Ben, who shuffled in slowly behind him, looking around at the wooden clad office, decorated with various signs and posters from past events. This parks department definitely seemed more lively than the ones he was used to.

“Hello, gents. Ron Swanson.” The mustached man said, extending his hand out to Chris.

In typical Chris fashion, he ignored Ron’s hand and pointed his index finger to his face, repeating his name slowly. “Ron…Swanson…”

Ron looked very confused at Chris causing Ben stared down at his shoes, uncomfortably. He remembered how weirded out he was the first time he met Chris and he did this to exact thing to him.

The blonde woman next to Ron pipped up, extending her hand as well and stepping forward. “I’m Deputy Director, Leslie Knope.”

Chris repeated his same actions with her, and Ben watched as she nodded awkwardly in response. Her hair was the lightest shade of a blonde he had ever seen on anyone and it kind of made her look like an angel. In short, Ben thought she was really pretty. 

Not that it mattered, in his original outline of the budget proposal, he had written that all department’s deputy directors would be let go in order to free up some money. 

“Would you gentlemen like a tour?” Leslie offered brightly, looking directly at Ben for the first time since he walked in. People were usually distracted by Chris’ energy, making Ben’s existence kind of a second thought.

“Oh there is quite literally nothing I would rather have in the world than a tour of the Parks and Recreation Department of the great city of Pawnee led by Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope.”

“Okay.” Leslie giggled, looking relieved. 

“Ben?” Chris asked without looking at him, basically signifying that he wasn’t going to listen to whatever said either way. 

Still, Ben had to try his best to shut Chris down so that they could keep their day moving so he mumbled, “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

As usual, Chris soldiered on, his positivity and desire to be liked making him deaf to Ben’s obvious awkwardness. “Let’s do it!”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

This meeting with the state auditors was going better than Leslie could have ever imagined. She led Chris Traeger around as he excitedly introduced himself to each person in the department, pointing his finger and repeating their name. Shuffling behind him was his partner Ben who looked less than thrilled to be tagging along on Chris and Leslie’s lengthy tour of a relatively small office. 

Leslie decided to ignore him and focus on Chris, who’s positivity and joy seemed to shine brighter than the sun. If Chris was this wonderful all the time, she had no doubt in her mind that she would not only be able to keep her Parks budget but possibly be able to get work started on Lot 48. Chris reminded her a lot of herself, a person who wanted to make things happen.

Following their nearly thirty-five minute tour, Chris gathered everyone back into the middle of the room and began to speak, “People, we are here from the state budget office from Indianapolis. Ooh, what does that mean?”

Leslie’s breath hitched nervously, that was the exact question she had been asking herself for most of the day. 

“Well, simply, we are here to tinker with your budget. Think of the government as a broken down carousel, we’re gonna slap on a new coat of paint, we’re gonna fix that broken speaker system, and we are gonna get those happy kids back up on the horses where they belong. Okay?” 

That actually didn’t sound half bad to Leslie, so she nodded in agreement, “Yeah.”

This enthusiasm did not excite Chris enough, so he repeated himself, exclaiming, “Okay?”

The rest of the Parks Department, who Leslie had noted were being uncharacteriscally quiet chimed in, in happy agreement. Chris’ words seemed to have calmed them all down a bit and Leslie finally felt like she was regaining the control she had lost. 

Chris happily clapped Ben on his shoulder and Leslie noticed that he had been sitting with his head down from all of Chris’ speech. What was his problem?

“My partner Ben is gonna stick around for a little bit. And I will see you all later. Adios!” Chris said, leaving the office with a happy stride. 

Leslie took a step forward to Ben, hoping to get on the right foot with him. Anyone who worked with someone as positive as Chris had to have the same passion for government as him…right? She smiled up at him but before she could speak, he looked at her and Ron and asked the dreaded question, “Do you have a second?”

Leslie straightened up at his tone but decided to approach him with the same level of positivity that Chris had just given her. “Of course.” 

She led him into the conference room, Ron following them giddily like he knew something she didn’t. They sat down at the table facing each other and Ben pulled out a padfolio out his briefcase and began thumbing through it. Leslie studied his face, noting that he looked slightly familiar to her, but she was unable to place him in her mind. With his dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, she noted that he was really cute.

Since that didn’t exactly seem like the most professional thought to be having about someone sent by the state government, she decided to be friendly and break the awkward tension in the room by saying, “I really like your shirt.”

As if she hadn’t even spoken, Ben kept his eyes trained on page eight of Leslie’s budget report and huffed, “So I’d like to talk about where you think there’s waste within your department.”

Waste? Really? How could there be any possible waste in a Parks and Recreation department? Every single thing that they did benefited members of the community. She laughed at this question and simply stated, “There is none.”

At the same time, Ron laughed and said, “Where do I start?” 

Leslie sighed internally, Ron’s anti-government attitude was not exactly helpful at this moment. He continued, “What exactly will you be cutting? And how much of it? And can I watch you do it while eating pork cracklins?”

Ben ignored Ron’s insane request and flipped to another page of Leslie’s report, glossing over the dozen or so paragraphs she had written in there with Jack London quotes and inspirational ramblings about the beauty of nature. “Let’s talk about personal. What can you tell me about Jerry Gergich?”

She was not about to let anyone on her team go down, it simply wasn’t an option. They had all stuck by her and helped her make this department what it was, and she owed that much to them. So she did what she always did when anyone asked her about why Jerry still a job in her department had, she lied. “He is one of the best people on the planet. He’s universally adored here. If you fired him, there would be a revolt.” 

She could see Ron shifting uncomfortably in her seat next to her and she knew she had laid it on a little thick, but this Ben guy seemed to not have a lot of feelings about this whole situation whatsoever.  
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Ben was quickly growing tired of Leslie’s ignorance about this entire situation. Part of him blamed Chris for how nonchantly he had acted about the seriousness of this issue but another part of him quickly realized that Leslie Knope was not the type of person who liked being told that she couldn’t do something. 

If she was going to skirt around his questions, perhaps she would try and listen to reason and cold hard facts so he sat slightly forward in his chair and looked her directly in her big blue eyes that were starting to bulge a little with frustration, “Okay, you need to understand that just to keep this town afloat, we probably have to cut the budget of every department by forty or fifty percent, okay?”

Ben thought he saw the hope in Leslie’s eyes dull a little bit at his statement and prayed that this information would make her see what they were trying to do. She pressed on, mentioning how Chris said that they only had to tinker with the budget and Ben silently cursed him. Chris absolutely loved pumping people up with positivity before Ben had to bring down the hammer of budget cuts and job losses. 

Slightly annoyed at Chris for leaving him in this situation alone and growing more annoyed at Leslie’s persistence, he coldly replied, “Yeah he said that because that sounds a lot better than we’re going to gut it with a machete.”

He heard Ron giggle excitedly, but his eyes were fixed on Leslie’s face, her eyes now searing at him with an angry stare and lips pursed. She studied him with deep intensity for a moment, clearly calculating her next move in her head.

“You’re a jerk.”

Ben was slightly taken aback. He had definitely been called some extremely questionable names in meetings before, particularly when he was firing someone, but he had never been called a jerk. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m sorry, these are real people in a real town working in a real building with real feelings.”

Ben thought back to the strange murals littering the walls and the excessive use of light wood on everything that made him feel like he had stepped into the 1970s. Was this woman serious? “This building has feelings?”

“Maybe. There’s a lot of history in this one, maybe it does. How can you be so blasé about this?” 

Her inability to listen to reason had fully pissed him off at this point so he went for what he had a feeling would drive her craziest, insulting her own city’s government, by saying, “Because I didn’t cause these problems, Miss Knope. Your government did.”

Just as he had expected, she stopped talking, looking at him like he had physically wounded her. He was done with this conversation, there was no point in arguing with someone who he was probably going to fire in a week’s time anyways. He began to pack up his stuff. “I’ll get what I need from the spreadsheets. Thanks.”

He headed out of the office trying to avoid eye contact with everyone standing right outside the door. 

When he reached his office on the third floor, Chris was doing push-ups. “Hey buddy! How did it go?”

“Oh…you know, great. They all are really looking forward to having their budget slashed and possibly losing their jobs.”

Chris sat up on his knees to study Ben’s face, trying to detect any truth in his statement. “I know that was sarcasm and I do not appreciate it but I am only halfway through my 10,000 push-ups so I do not have time for your negativity.” He went back to what he was doing without even breaking a sweat. 

Ben sat down at his desk and began to study the spreadsheets to gather what he needed. He smirked to himself as he saw that Leslie’s name was printed at the bottom of every single one. He had never seen someone write up such a detailed budget report all by themself. And for just a moment, he thought about how refreshing it was to see someone so passionate in city government.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Ugh, what are we going to do?” Leslie whined, slamming her head down on the desk for about the fiftieth time in the past hour. Between her meeting with Ben and her intense caffeine crash, she was not in a good mood.

Tom turned to her from his desk, “No cupcake, what are you going to do?”

“Tom, after how that meeting went, they could cut the whole department, then we’ll all be out of the job. That doesn’t scare you even a little bit?”

Tom thought for a moment, giving Leslie’s heart a glimmer of hope that he would help her come up with a scheme, but then he responded, “Nah…the only thing I’m scared about is how many hot girls I can fit into my car tonight on the way home from the Snakehole Lounge.”

Leslie perked up at this, “The Snakehole Lounge! April’s party! That’s perfect!”

“What do you mean?”

“We invite Chris to April’s party tonight as a gesture of goodwill. He comes, hangs out with us all, sees how amazing our department and Pawnee is and maybe he can convince Ben how important our department is.”

“Noooo...” Tom whined. “Did you see how beautiful that man is? I don’t need some hot out of town guy coming in and stepping on my game.”

“Tom, please. I need you to do this, we all need you to do this.” Leslie pleaded. “If you go up there right now and invite him, I will finally give you Ann’s phone number.”

Tom now seemed interested. He had been trying to get Ann’s number for over a year and a half to no avail. Without saying anything, he jumped up and headed to Chris’ office. Leslie called after him, “Make sure you don’t invite Ben!”  
Tom was far too busy mentally planning all of the flirty texts he was going to bombard a newly single Ann with that he didn’t listen to her. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

It was nearly 9:00 pm by the time Ben felt that he had done enough pouring over the city budget for one day and was ready to head home. He removed his noise cancelling headphones that had been blaring Letters to Cleo for hours now and noticed Chris was applying cologne. 

It wasn’t atypical of Chris to start dating a beautiful woman once they arrived in a new town, but this was surprisingly quick. “Do you have a date?”

“Oh no,” Chris chuckled, “Tom Haverford from the Parks Department came up here and wanted to see if we wanted to attend a party at a local club called the Snakehole Lounge. You must have missed it with those silly headphone on.”

“Oh.” Ben said flatly. “I’m sure he meant you, not me. I’ll just head back to the motel.”

“Nonsense. We are going together. It is our first real night in this beautiful city of Pawnee, and we should attend this party.” 

“Is everyone from the department going to be there?”

“Well, I would assume so, yes. It is their intern, April Ludgate’s 21st birthday.”

“Oh…well…uh…then I definitely shouldn’t go. I kind of got into it today with Leslie Knope after you left. She called me a jerk.”

Chris looked up at Ben with sadness in his face as if Ben had just told him he had three weeks to live. He crossed the office floor and put his hand on Ben’s shoulder like a father trying to give his son a pep talk. “I think you should go and try to apologize to Miss. Knope. Perhaps you just got off on the wrong foot and going to this party can show her that you care and want to find some common ground.”

Normally Ben would try to shrug off Chris’ pep talks but seeing how well Leslie responded to Chris earlier today, he figured that it was worth a shot.

“Okay, I’ll go.”  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Snakehole Lounge was just about a gross and sleazy as Ben had imagined it in his mind when Chris had told him the name. He had gone back to his motel to change out of his work clothes into something a little bit more causal, hoping that would disarm Leslie when he spoke to her.

The biggest flaw in that plan was that Chris was already talking it up with multiple people when he arrived. Ben wasn’t great at small talk and with the one person he knew at this party being taken up by half a dozen women, he just sort of stood awkwardly by the bar.

“Hello Ben.” A deep voice said next to him. He turned and saw Ron Swanson.

“Oh hi Ron.”

“If you’re here to talk to Leslie, I don’t know how easy she is going to be to get through to.”

Ben turned his head to him in surprise that Ron would’ve guessed that so quickly. “Oh uh…I…uh…I just wanted to see if I could try and…”

Another person who Ben later remembered was named Donna from the department walked up and began talking to Ron, Ben’s stammering not even registering to his ears. Ben scanned the room nervously until he spotted her.

Her hair was tied up with a few blonde curls falling in her face. She was wearing a red top and a black cardigan, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how adorable she looked chatting away with her brunette friend. He saw her eyes widen suddenly as she met his gaze and he realized that she had seen him. No turning back now.

He quickly made his way across the dance floor to her as he heard her friend say, “Be professional.”

“Hi.” 

“Hello Ben.” She offered him her hand way too high, as if she wanted him to bend down and take it so he did. Anything to keep this conversation peaceful.

“Um, look, uh, I kind of feel like we got off on the wrong foot. So I just wanted to stop by and-“

“Yeah well save your breathe.” Leslie interrupted hostility. “Just get out of here.”

Ouch. Ben started to walk away but stopped when she continued angrily, “Because this is a party for my friends and you’re trying to fire all my friends.”

Well this wasn’t going as planned, Ben thought to himself. “I-“

“Plus, I just talked to everybody in this bar and nobody wants you here.”

He was quickly coming to the realization that she was drunk, based on her obvious anger and the context clues of the multiple empty drink glasses that were around her table. “That must have taken a while.”

She swallowed hard and began pointing her finger at him angerly. “You’re a cold callous person and you want to kill people with machetes.”

He sighed sadly, her insults were getting to the level he was used to when coming to a new town. He was glad to see that Pawnee wasn’t any different from the last forty or so places he had been.

“And Ann is right. I should make my own plan so you can’t hurt us and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

He had had about enough so he just resigned. “Um okay then, I’ll…I’ll…uh…just see you tomorrow. Sorry to bother you.”

“Get out of here.”

He put his hands in his pockets and shuffled out, not looking anyone in the eye and headed back to his motel. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ben got into the office early the next morning and went straight to work, hoping that Chris seeing him deep into spreadsheets would prevent him from informing him about how wonderful his night was. 

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. He half listened as Chris told him about this delightful woman he met named Ann Perkins and how she had given him her phone because she couldn’t remember her phone number. Didn’t Leslie have a friend with her last night named Ann? 

Yeah that seems about right, he sighed to himself. Chris gets to impress Leslie’s best friend in one night and he can’t even get Leslie to talk to him for five minutes.

His train of self-deprecating thoughts is stopped by the sound of high heels hitting the carpeted floor coming towards their office. He peaked up for a moment and saw the woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his head for the past twenty-four hours walking in. Good lord, does she ever quit?

The answer to this question is a resounding “no” he quickly realized as she told Chris she wanted to speak with him and took a seat at the table he was working on while beginning her apology. 

In that moment, he decided he wasn’t going to let this get to him. He wasn’t going to let some tiny aggressive blonde with way too much passion for a tiny branch of government keep him from doing his work. And because of that, he doesn’t even look up at her while he said, “Don’t worry about it” as casually as he possibly could.

She pressed on. “Now what I did was out of line, twice, and I was worked up because obviously you represent a threat to my department-“

Before the logical side of his brain could remind him to take the high road, he bit back at her, “Your city council and your mayor are the threats to your department. We didn’t do anything to get you into this situation, okay?”

She nodded angrily, her blood clearly boiling just as fast as his was. “Okay, look, Ben, I don’t appreciate your callous attitude, okay?” 

Callous? Did she seriously think he got some sort of kick from firing people and destroying programs? “Really?” He asked, incredulously.

“Yeah, really. You may hold my fate in your hands like a small bird, but I still think you’re an ass.” 

And that made him really pause for a moment. His gaze softened at her extremely angry face. He hadn’t seen a person this passionate, with an unabashedly intense need to prove themself and the confidence that they were doing the right thing in years. It reminded him a little bit of the way he was when he decided to run for Mayor seventeen years ago. 

Maybe they weren’t so different.

“You wanna get a beer?”  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

As she tipped the ice cold bottle to her lips, Leslie was not entirely sure how she had gotten here. Well, she knew how she got here, she walked there since the bar was only a block away from City Hall. What she wasn’t exactly sure about was how she had ended up here, at 10:30 in the morning, drinking a beer with Ben, a person she had yelled at three times in the past twenty four hours.

“Wow that tastes really good.” She said, examining the bottle in her hand to avoid making eye contact with Ben, who was looking very cute across the counter from her with his sleeves rolled up.

“How’s your head?” He asked, sounding a lot sweeter than he had in their previous conversations.

“Mushy.” She braced herself for a moment and decided it was finally time to try and apologize once and for all. She looked him right in the eye and said, “I’m sorry that I yelled at you. All three times. But I don’t think you know anything about my department. Have you ever been part of a government body before?”

Ben sighed, “Uh, I have. Yeah. In a small town called Partridge, Minnesota.”

Wait…a…damn…minute… “Why does that sound familiar?”

He looked at her expectantly, as if he had half assumed she already knew. What did he say his last name was again? Wyatt? For the love of all things breakfast related, she knew he looked familiar yesterday. “You’re Benji Wyatt?”

He blushed slightly at her. “I am.”

So mean evil callous Ben wasn’t so bad after all…rather, he used to not be so bad. He used to want to enact change and help the people, long before he became this angry numbers robot. She really did not see that one coming. She laughed, “God I was so jealous of you.”

“You shouldn’t have been. I mean, it ended up kind of ruining my life. I mean, now I’m balancing budgets so I can show people I’m responsible, so I can run for office again someday and not get laughed at, you know?” He said sadly and she really felt like this side of Ben that she was seeing was truly him. The one trying to rise up above his mistakes. Before she had a chance to really ruminate on the deep emotional factors of his being, he said, “I mean, you wanna run for office someday, right?”

This confused her more than anything that had happened in the past day and a half. More than the Master Plan meeting getting cancelled. More than how she managed to do so many shots last night and still didn’t throw up. More than Ann thinking she made out with someone last night but not really being sure who it was. She had never told anyone that before.

Sure, she had said many times that she wanted to be President and she wrote about wanting to be Indiana governor in her kindergarten dream journal, but she had never seriously said it before to anyone. And he just knew. How did he just know?

He continued on, brushing past her question when she vocalized it, reminding her that she needed to be a responsible adult, or no one was ever going to elect her to do anything.

He was right. As much as she hated to admit it, he was. Completely.

She paid for both of their drinks, slamming her card down on the counter with a joking, “Womp, there it is!” and they headed back to City Hall.

Ben was telling her about how truly terrible the Pawnee Super Suites Motel was when they got up to the Parks Department door. 

“Thanks for the beer.” She said, smiling up at him.

“I believe I should be thanking you, you paid.”

She nodded to him and turned to go back inside when he called her name. She turned to him and he looked at her with the same soft gaze he had given her when he asked her to go for a beer and said, “We’re going to figure this out.”

She smiled at him and walked to her office, turned on her computer and opened a new document. She typed at the top of it: The NEW Master Plan.  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ben walked back into his office with a slight smile on his face. His conversation with Leslie was fairly positive and she seemed to be understanding his view point more. It was progress, he thought to himself. Progress towards what, he wasn’t exactly sure.

His smile quickly faded as he saw Chris sitting over a spreadsheet with his face looking pale.

“Chris, what’s up?”

“The mayor finally got back to me with some last minute numbers that were going to determine our next steps here and it’s much worse than we thought.” He gestured to the paper in his hand and Ben walked over to take it from him.

Oh, it was much much much worse. 

“We have decided to shut down the government effective immediately. We are meeting with every department today to let them know.” Chris said, getting up to start doing jumping jacks.

Ben took a deep breath and nodded, examining the paper again. He knew he should be focused on trying to get this, and an extremely worked up Chris, under control but his thoughts automatically went to Leslie and how disappointed she was going to be. So much for progress…


	2. Freddy Spaghetti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ya'all, back with a new chapter! Please please please give me some comments and suggestions because your feedback would totally help me since I've never written fanfiction before. Starting with the next chapter, there will be less episode-based dialogue I think because we start getting some more space to fill in the blanks of Ben and Leslie's relationship.
> 
> The email thing at the beginning of this chapter is inspired by the deleted scene from "Leslie and Ben" where Ben and Chris read their first week emails about Leslie aloud. It was such a cute scene that I needed to put it in the story.
> 
> I don't own the show, the characters or any of the dialogue I used from the episode.

“Are you going to get that?” Paul asked, gesturing the loud ding that Ben’s computer had just made. The fifth one in the last hour. 

Ben sighed and continued to write down the numbers he needed to complete his latest calculation of the city budget. “No, I already know who it is.”

The city manager chuckled knowingly, “I figured as much. She’s definitely one of our more…spirited…employees.”

Ben internally rolled his eyes at Paul’s word choice. Leslie was far from just spirited. She was passionate and reckless and energetic to a fault. She was like a runaway train who would let nothing, and no one, stop her from accomplishing what she wanted. And that included him. 

In the nearly thirty hours since Ben and Chris had informed Pawnee that their government would be shut down while they resolved the financial crisis, Leslie had requested meetings with him a total of fourteen times and sent him eighty-two memos. Not that he was counting. 

Ben finished his calculations and handed them over to Paul to bring to the city council so that they could start to make some tough decisions. As Paul left, Ben turned his attention to his computer to see what messages he had missed. Make that eighty-seven memos.

He opened the most recent one which read:

Ben,

The Parks Department needs money to fix the sprinkler system at Ramsett Park. The grass is dying and then the children will have nowhere to run around. Stop being the Idi Amin of Indiana State Government and help us keep our parks from collapsing.  
Sincerely,  
Leslie Knope  
Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation Department  
Pawnee, Indiana

Ben rolled his eyes so far back into his head he thought for a moment they might get stuck back there and opened a new email message tab to Chris, who was currently meeting with the education department about ways to cut down their school lunch budget. While he tried to maintain a level of professionalism in the office, Leslie was getting to him and he needed to vent to the only person he really knew here and so he typed out a message and hit send. 

Chris,

We need to do something about Leslie Knope in the Parks Department. She’s being such a pain in the ass.  
Ben  
A few moments later, as Ben was starting to sort through the dozens of files on his desk, his computer dinged with a message from Chris that read:

Ben,

Really? She seems lovely…if a bit forceful in her opinions. 

Chris

Ben chuckled. That was the biggest understatement he had ever heard.

Chris,

She’s driving me nuts. She has sent me more than eighty memos. In the last one, she compared me to Idi Amin.  
Ben

Not even a minute later, his computer chimed again with a new message from Chris.

Ben,

Why are you so focused on Leslie Knope?

Chris

Ben’s heart nervously skipped a beat. Sure he had spent most of last night thinking about her and her pretty blonde curls and her big blue eyes and her vibrant personality. But that didn’t mean he was focused on her. If anything, given the eighty-seven memos he had sitting in his inbox from her, she was focused on him. 

Well, technically she was focused on how his choices could impact her department’s future. He leaned forward, feeling his cheeks warm with embarrassment, and typed out:

Chris,

I’m not…whatever…shut up. How is the education budget discussion going?

Ben

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“And that is why our children need this concert, Chris. For the future and stability of Pawnee.” Leslie mumbled to herself, practicing her speech one final time before she said it to Chris. 

She had timed it out perfectly by asking around and found out that Ben was going to be in a meeting with the sewage department at this very moment. She knew those guys and their toilet party would keep him preoccupied for at least an hour, so she strode into their office feeling confident. 

As she entered, she noted Ben’s empty desk behind her and began to deliver her passionate speech, “Well, I believe there has been a casualty of war in this government shutdown and it saddens me. And it is Pawnee’s children.” 

Chris welcomed the opportunity for her to address this issue and asked her sit. It was an unsurprising but refreshing change considering the nearly ninety declined memos she currently had in her inbox from Ben. 

In fact, Chris agreed so quickly that the Freddy Spaghetti Children’s concert needed to be restored that she was now reading him some of the arguments she had prepared just in case he (or more likely, Ben) had said no when she heard a familiar voice next to her, pestering her like a little nat. “Leslie Knope, what a surprise.”

She rolled her eyes. Considering he had blown off all fourteen of the meetings she had tried to schedule with him, this was most definitely not a surprise. 

As Chris headed out on his morning jog, Leslie tried to mentally regroup since Ben had just squashed down Chris’ desire to help them plan the concert. There had to be some way to get through to him. Her and Ben had had such a great conversation the other day when they got that beer, she knew he cared about government somewhere deep down inside of him and she just knew that if he saw just how special Pawnee was that he would be on board right away.

“Ben, let’s talk solutions,” she started, walking over to his desk.

“Leslie,” he sighed, looking up at her with a slight look of sympathy in his eye. “Pawnee is broke. There’s no money for a concert, okay? I mean, Idaho cut their parks department by 80% and Idaho is basically one giant park.”

Idaho? What did this have to do with Idaho? This was about Pawnee, the greatest town in the entire world with the greatest people and the greatest food and most definitely the greatest parks department. It was different. 

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again Ben, Pawnee is better than Idaho.” She explained calmly, trying to not let his comparison of her wonderful hometown to some stupid potato land offend her.

“No, Pawnee is not special, okay?” He said, emphasizing each word with a point of his finger. This made her falter for a second, how could he not see how amazing this place was? 

He continued on before she could offer a counterargument, standing and pointing to the chart on his wall. “Your department…all…the…way…down here is not a priority. And frankly, you’re not even supposed to be in the building, Leslie. You’re non-essential.” 

“That is not your call.”

“I know, it’s on your badge.” He said, returning to his seat without making eye contact with her.

“This? This isn’t me.” Leslie struggled, pulling at her badge. 

When he did nothing other than stare at her exasperatedly, she just stormed out of the room without a goodbye. 

Non-essential? Not a priority? She knew that the things she did with the Parks Department mattered to people. She knew that this concert would make her town’s kids happy and that was truly all that really mattered. She was going to figure out a way around this whether Ben liked it or not.  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“I cannot believe this. I seriously cannot believe this.” Ben said, slamming his hand down angrily on his steering wheel.

He and Chris were currently driving to Lot 48, a closed government owned property, to shut down the children’s concert that Leslie was attempting to put on. The concert he had told her multiple times could not and would not be happening. 

Chris was sitting in silence while Ben ranted, nodding sympathetically but offering no solid advice. When Ben got this frustrated, he knew that is was best to just let him get it out. Keeping all of that frustration inside would be bad for his health, Chris figured. 

“I mean seriously, this woman is impossible.” Ben continued, “I tell her there’s no money in the budget for anything. Like anything at all. And she goes and throws a concert anyways? And then, I…I have to find out from Ron in the middle of a meeting? What did she think? That we would never find out?”

Ben had not been looking forward to that meeting in the first place. As much as Leslie had driven him insane since he got there, suggesting that she be fired felt kind of like suggesting a vet put down a healthy animal for the hell of it. She cared a lot more about her job than a lot of people who he was planning on keeping. So when Ron announced to him that Leslie was currently throwing a concert, the one he specifically told her not to, he went from being slightly on edge to full blown pissed off disaster. 

The only thing he felt that he could do was go and shut it down. The last thing this town needed on top of its crippling debt was a massive lawsuit from something going wrong at the concert. 

“Ben,” Chris offered. “Perhaps you could try to see things from Leslie’s point of view? She simply wanted to give these kids a wonderful day before the parks are shut down for a while.”

“I know that Chris, but this is just so…irresponsible and reckless…”

“Those are just such negative words. Why not try passionate or brave?”

“No, Chris. This is just stupid.” Ben said as they pulled up to the venue. As he exited his car, he was slightly impressed to see food trucks and bouncy castles and a massive stage set up. Did she put this on all by herself? Okay focus Wyatt…

He and Chris walked on to the field to see Ron warning the rest of the department of their arrival which confused Ben slightly considering how anti-government he had been in their meeting. Chris strode up to the stage without giving Ben a second thought and offered the Parks Department and their helpers a massive round of applause. Yeah, that was totally going to help Ben make his point.

“Now my partner Ben wants to say something!” Chris exclaimed, pointing him out.

“Yeah we’re shutting this down.” Ben replied, matter of factly. He could not even believe Chris was trying to entertain this idea. “The concert is canceled everybody.”

Leslie stepped forward looking more irritated at him than when she was yelling at him at the Snakehole Lounge. “Well, here’s the thing though Ben. It’s not canceled. We’re putting it on. Okay? Because the stage is already built. Everything was donated for free by local vendors. Everyone here believes that what we’re doing is essential. Freddy Spaghetti will sing.” 

Her impassioned speech left him silent for a moment, searching his brain for a comeback and a list of reasons why he was going to shut this down when Donna piped up, “Actually, Leslie, I just found out…Freddy Spaghetti ain’t coming.” 

Before he could speak, she looked him dead in the eye through his sunglasses and said, “Freddy Spaghetti may not sing…but something much cooler is going to happen…I think.”

She sped off with the rest of her friends before he could even argue with her. Chris handed him a Sprite to rehydrate, then jogged off to get a quick lap in while Ben figured out what to do. 

Exhausted, Ben walked over to the stage and sat down on the edge of it, looking out at the lot, fully getting a good look at it. The lot had been set up with games, face paint, and food. Bales of hay were making barriers around things so that people knew where to be. He had never seen anything like it in his life, someone so willing to help others that they put everything else on the line. And it paid off. 

Ron walked up and sat silently next to him. “Believe me, son. I know it can be frustrating dealing with Leslie. The number of times I’ve tried to fire her over the years would astound you.”

Ben turned to look at his stoic face, “Then why haven’t you?”

“Just look around. Leslie Knope cares more about the people of this town more than anyone else. You may want to save this city’s budget, but she is going to save everything else.”  
Before Ben could reply, Ron stood up and nodded to him, “Now I saw a turkey leg truck on my way in here and it is my intention to find it and buy every single piece of meat that they have in there. Good day.” With that, he walked away like some sort of prolific, stone-faced, meat-loving Yoda. 

She wanted to save this town. She cared enough to save the soul of the town. That was something Ben never got a chance to do. When he tanked Partridge’s budget on Ice Town, the happy-go-lucky small town feel that he was used to seemed to die. Leslie wasn’t going to let that happen to Pawnee. And neither was he.

He jumped to his feet and began walking to his car, pulling his phone out on the way there to google “Freddy Spaghetti Upcoming Concert.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ben pulled his car around the back of the stage so that he didn’t ruin the surprise for all of the kids that had now gathered at Lot 48 while he was gone. He also didn’t want to ruin any of their childhoods considering Freddy Spaghetti was currently hanging out of his car window smoking a cigarette. Through his open windows, he could hear Leslie awkwardly trying to explain to the crowd why Freddy couldn’t be there. He pulled up and turned the car off.

“Dude, go!” He said, practically pushing Freddy out of the car and throwing him his guitar from the backseat.

They jogged up together and Freddy jumped on stage at full speed, ending Leslie’s uncomfortable rendition of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” with a flourish. Ben knew throwing in that extra $300 bucks was worth it to get Freddy to leave Eagleton immediately on top of the double payment he had originally given him for doing the concert.

Leslie walked down the stairs, smiling and took a spot next to him, watching the concert in a comfortable silence. It was the first time Ben felt like he could let out a full breath around her since they met. After a few pasta related songs, she turned to study him for a moment, and he worried for a second that she might have been mad at him for ruining her big chance of becoming a children’s performer. Instead, she said, “Why did you do this?”

Rather than wax poetic about his conversation with Ron and how he felt that she stood for everything he believed in but was too scared to do, he simply replied, “Well, I’m not a monster. I want the kids to have their concert.”

“Ah, mean Ben has a soft spot.”

“Is that what you guys call me? Mean Ben?” he chuckled.

“No, no, no.” She laughed in reply and for a moment, it almost felt to him like they were flirting. 

That definitely felt like dangerous territory, so he continued on, “Look, this is really great today but there’s going to be a lot of pain ahead, Leslie. We have to cut 32% of the-“

She scrunched up her face and sighed, “Can you just stop it? Okay? Just for one moment, enjoy the fact that you provided a service for people. Not a cut. A service. And they love it.”

And that was all he had ever truly wanted to do. But he couldn’t let her get away with all of this that easily so he replied, “Biggest service was getting you to stop singing.”

She smirked at him and walked away to go check on how the crowd was doing. He watched her for a moment, his features softening and he smiled to himself. Maybe there were somethings about Pawnee that were special.


	3. Go Big or Go Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left kudos! Please continue to give me feedback as I would love to hear what parts of the story are working and what parts are not. This chapter covers "Go Big or Go Home" aka the start of the Harvest Festival arc. It covers one of my most unanswered questioned which is, "how did Ben end up getting so involved in the festival anyways?" I really hope you like it! 
> 
> I do not own Parks and Recreation and any characters or dialogue from the episode is not mine.

Pawnee’s government shutdown lasted for three long months. Three months of no paperwork, no meetings and no spreadsheets. Leslie was going slowly insane.

Ann had done everything to try to get her to relax all summer, taking her to the lake, for shopping trips, buying her copious amounts of waffles from J.J’s but nothing seemed to soothe the hole in Leslie’s heart in the shape of Pawnee’s City Hall. Her last time being there had been nearly two and half months ago for a meeting of the City Budget’s task force. Since they weren’t getting much accomplished, Ben and Chris had decided it would be best if they disbanded the whole thing and try to take a crack at the budget themselves with some higher ups in the city government. Leslie wasn’t really sure why they found the meetings to be unproductive, she had been having a wonderful time fighting the two of them on every single budget cut they mentioned. Hell, she even won some of the fights. This disbandment meant that Leslie could not access City Hall for any reason, and it was driving her nuts. She swore to Ann on multiple occasions that she couldn’t even picture what her office looked like anymore. Ann reminded her that she had a scrapbook filled with photos of the office on her coffee table, but Leslie wanted the real thing.

So when she got an email one morning at 5:56 am with the subject line: PAWNEE GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN IS OVER, she jumped out of bed like a kid who had just been offered a trip to Disneyland, got dressed and went to wrangle the rest of her team. It was time to get to work.  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The three months of Pawnee’s government shutdown were the longest three months of Ben’s life. Every day was filled with paperwork, meetings and spreadsheets. Ben was going slowly insane. 

He barely saw the world outside of Pawnee’s City Hall and worked from dawn until late in the night trying to fix the city’s budget. He got about five hours of sleep a night and his eyes stung constantly from staring at his computer screen all day. He lived off of fast food and takeout from J.J’s Diner, a local restaurant that Leslie had told him about inadvertently during one of her passionate speeches about the importance of small businesses in their task force meetings. As much as he hated to admit it, he almost kind of missed those meetings. 

He enjoyed that he now got to hack through the city’s budget in peace without being questioned for his every move but sometimes when he got to a department or an area where he wasn’t too sure what to do, he almost wished that he had Leslie Knope in front of him giving him a list of reasons why the city needed him to keep that particular thing. He passed this off as the fact that he was just lonely since the only person he had seen most of the summer was Chris. 

In early September, he and Chris put together a presentation for Mayor Gunderson, Paul the city manager and the city council explaining the new budget and how they were planning on going forward implementing it throughout the city. At the end of the meeting, Chris delivered them good news: starting tomorrow the government would be reopened and everyone could return to their jobs at City Hall.

Ben got to work early the next day, buzzing with nerves and a touch of excitement. It felt like the first day of school in a way and he was ready to put forward the plan he and Chris had expertly crafted to save this government. He had to admit, it was some of their best work yet. 

“Good morning!” Chris cheered walking into the office, holding his two briefcases. One for work and one for holding all of his vitamins. 

“Hey,” Ben said happily, “you ready to do this?”

“Oh absolutely, I actually have a list already typed up of which departments we are each going to go talk to about the new budget.” Chris handed him a sheet of paper and Ben read down it.

The Parks and Recreation department. 

Great, Ben thought to himself, any slight progress he had made in getting Leslie to trust him was about to be shattered when he had to be the one to inform her that they were about to go into maintenance mode. Well, maintenance mode and running a two team youth basketball league. 

He shook his head as if he was physically trying to shake out this thought. What Leslie thought of him didn’t really matter in the long run.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Leslie’s joyous first day of school energy had been ripped away from her the second Ben informed the Parks department that they would be in maintenance mode for the time being. Leslie didn’t do maintenance. She did creativity and innovation and lived for trying to enact change. As much as she was happy to be back in City Hall, the idea of just making sure the parks stayed clean and running a youth basketball league made her feel like she was back to square one again. This actually felt worse than the shutdown did because her fate was written in stone. Well, technically it was written in Times New Roman on a printed out Word document that Ben had given her, but it still felt like a death sentence.

Speaking of Ben, she was incredibly disappointed in him. He was far from someone who she would call her friend but after the Freddy Spaghetti concert, she thought she had seen a change him. He would stay late at task force meetings to hash things out with her, listen to her ideas and one time when she ran into him grabbing takeout from J.J’s, he thanked her for recommending this place to him. In the moment, she had no idea what he was talking about but smiled to herself later when she remembered her twenty-three minute long speech on the importance of the small business to Pawnee that featured an ode to her love of J.J’s waffles. She had thought no one was really listening by that point but he must have. She had really begun to think that Ben respected her and her department so when he gave her department this new plan, she felt like he was showing her how little faith he had in her and her co-workers. 

Luckily, her beautiful shimmering sea pearl of a best friend, Ann had the day off from the hospital and came to visit her at work, two cups of coffee in hand, so she could vent. As they walked the halls, Leslie complained about her situation while also taking in all of the sights she had so dearly missed the past three months. This ended abruptly when they came face to face with Ben and Chris.

“Leslie Knope! Ann Perkins!” Chris chirped excitedly as if he hadn’t been spending all day letting various departments know that they would now be operating on shoestring budgets. “How are my two favorite people in this entire town?” 

Leslie glared as Ben stopped next to Chris and smiled at her. He had no right to be smiling. He had no right to be looking at her. In fact, he had no right to be in this building as far as she was concerned but she decided to channel her anger into Chris’ question. “Not good, Chris. There’s a whole line of people in my office complaining that all their programs have been slashed.”

Both men ducked their heads down awkwardly as Chris sighed, “Yeah I know, it’s terrible.” Then, he turned to Ben and said, “Is there anything we can do about that?”

“No.” Ben answered, clearly annoyed. 

Ah-ha! So it was Ben that was keeping the budget from her, not that Leslie had any doubt in her mind. It still stung a little bit though to confirm her suspicions. 

Her mind started reeling with ideas about how she was going to reinstate the budget, so she didn’t even notice that Chris was walking away with Ann until Ben turned to her and started to speak.

“So, how’s it going?” He started uncomfortably.

She was absolutely not in the mood to have a conversation with him, so she immediately replied, “Save it, okay? I know you don’t have faith in me and my department, and that’s fine. But don’t expect me to sit here and chit-chat with you.” 

He took in a shallow breath and nodded, “Alright, fair enough.” 

They started off in the same direction when Leslie’s frustration got the best of her and she childishly forced him to go in another direction. She really just did not want to see his annoyingly cute face and be reminded that he thought her department was a failure for one more second than she needed to. 

She walked down the hallway towards the courtyard where Ann and Chris had gone to talk, mentally crossing off ideas she could use to reinstate the budget. An inspiring op-ed piece in the Pawnee Journal? Been there, done that. A scathing interview on Perd Hapley’s show? That could get her fired. She continued down this list until she walked fully into the courtyard to see Chris asking Ann out for what must have been the fifth time at this point. As she watched them talk, an idea began forming in her brain. She may have just figured out a way to save the Parks department.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ben and Chris were working silently at their respective desks when the sound of birds tweeting in unison cut through the air. Ben smirked as he quickly realized it was Chris’ cell phone ringing. He insisted of having his phone’s ringtone be sounds from nature in order to soothe him before taking a phone call. 

“Ann Perkins!” Chris said into the phone joyfully. “This is truly quite a surprise given our earlier conversation.”

Ben continued typing on his computer, not wanting to eavesdrop on his friend’s phone call but his ears perked up when he heard Chris say, “Oh I am free tonight.....at seven o’clock? Okay…sounds perfect…I will see you tonight, Ann Perkins.”

He hung up the phone, practically beaming in Ben’s direction and said, “That was Ann Perkins, she has agreed to go out with me later tonight.”

“Oh that’s great Chris!”

“Yes it is truly remarkable. I have been asking her out all summer and she has told me every time that it just is not a good time for her to date, but I guess something must have changed her mind because she wanted to go for dinner tonight.”

Ben leaned forward in his chair and frowned, running a hand through his hair. “Really? She’s turned you down multiple times but now she suddenly has interest in you?”

Chris did not seem to see the issue that Ben was laying out in front of him and was instead looking up restaurants for their date on his computer, so Ben pressed on saying, “Don’t you find that even a little bit suspicious?”

Chris looked up at him, clearly confused. “Suspicious? Absolutely not. There just must have been some sort of unexplainable energy shift in Ann that made her see that us going out on a date would be a good idea.”

Ben rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair, spinning it slightly to the side to face the chart on his back wall of Pawnee’s government structure and fixed his eyes on lowest tier. He knew exactly what the energy shift was. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“This is getting ridiculous,” Ben mumbled to himself, checking the time on his car’s clock. He had been sitting in the parking lot of the restaurant where Chris was on his date with Ann for over an hour and a half waiting to confirm his suspicions.  


Finding out where Chris was taking Ann had been the easy part, he excitedly told Ben every last detail of his plans for their date before he left the office to go for a quick 5k and then get ready. Ben had waited at the office until 6:30 and then drove himself over to the restaurant, parked himself in a far corner so they wouldn’t see him when they showed up and waited. He kind of felt like he was on a stakeout and he almost wished he had brought snacks. No stakeout is complete without snacks. 

As his mind wandered to what type of snacks he should have brought and then what food he was going to get to bring back to his motel room later, he finally spotted what he had been expecting, but hoping not to, see.

A small woman with bright blonde hair was running full speed into the restaurant while chatting on her cell phone. “Gotcha,” he whispered to himself as he got out of the car and followed her inside. 

He stood in the lobby and waited for a few moments, trying to give her the benefit doubt. Maybe it was someone else. Maybe he was seeing things. Maybe Ann really did just suddenly change her. But then he peeked around the corner and saw her sitting at the table with Chris and Ann. God, Leslie Knope was a piece of work.

He strode over to the table, feeling some pride in the fact that he truly had Leslie’s number and knew that she would pull something like this. 

“Well, well, well!” He announced, making her look up at him like a cat that had just eaten a canary. 

“Ben!” Chris exclaimed, blissfully ignorant to what was clearly happening here. “What a fun surprise.” 

“Oh, that’s right! You were coming here tonight on a date,” Ben replied, feigning ignorance, “And, hey, Leslie is joining you on this wonderfully romantic occasion. How about that?”

Leslie glared at him, clearly knowing he had caught her but refusing to back down. “It is. Can I talk to you?”

“Sure.” 

The two of them stepped away from the table with their backs turned to Ann and Chris so that they hopefully could not hear their conversation. Ben’s plan was just to get Leslie out of here so that Chris could enjoy a nice date with Ann, even if Ann was just doing this to help out Leslie. Chris was a good guy and a great friend to him, and Ben didn’t want him to get hurt. 

“What are you doing here?” She asked him in a hushed tone.

“I’m just confirming a suspicion I had, Leslie.”

“What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with this date.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her knowingly, “Uh huh.”

“They’re both so beautiful. They probably just want to see each other naked.”

Ben glanced back at the table to see Ann awkwardly chugging her white wine while Chris prattled on about the benefits of goji berries and memory retention. It made him feel a little bit better for Chris that Ann seemed to know that this plan was wrong on so many levels. Turning his attention and anger back to Leslie, he said, “Okay, well, I know what you’re trying to do and you’re not that good at being sneaky.”

“Yes I am,” she argued as if not being sneaky was the worst thing he was accusing her of.

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m great at being sneaky.”

“Clearly, you’re not.” 

Ben was almost worried for a moment that this back and forth about the level of Leslie’s sneakiness was going to go on for the next hour when Chris chimed in from behind them and invited them to stay for dinner. He turned to look Leslie in the eye, smiling at the fact that he would now be able to foil her plan with his presence and replied at the same time as she did, “Great!”  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Leslie sank into one of the bar stools at the Bulge and sighed. This night was not going how she had hoped it would. She had been so careful helping Ann plan this evening because it was her last hope for the Parks department and Ben had ruined it by figuring out her plan and showing up. He seemed to have a pattern of just showing up and trying to destroy her plans and she absolutely could not stand it. 

She had been dancing with Ann and Chris for a few songs when Ann gave her a classic girl code “I want some time alone with this guy” face so she had gone over to the bar to get a drink and regroup. Her head was pounding from the combination of loud music and her frustration with this whole situation. She knew that what she was doing was wrong and she could clearly see that Ann was actually starting to like Chris, but she was too far gone into this plan to admit defeat and let Ben win again. 

“Hey,” a voice said behind her, “Is this seat taken?”

She turned to see Ben awkwardly standing there, looking down at his feet. She decided against fighting with him, just to give herself a break and gestured for him to sit down. 

“Having fun?” Ben asked smugly as he adjusted himself uncomfortably into the seat.  
“Not really,” she mumbled, “How did you know I would be on their date?”

Ben looked at her like she had just sprouted seven heads. “Leslie, Chris told me that he’s been asking Ann out all summer. And then all of a sudden, today, when the Park’s budget had been officially reduced, she said yes to him? It just all seemed a little…convenient to me.” 

Before Leslie could protest his accusations, the bartender came up and asked them what they wanted to drink. Ben ordered a Miller Light, the same he had gotten when they went for beers three months ago while Leslie ordered a cotton candy martini. 

They sat in silence while he made their drinks, Ben trying to think of something that would break the tension between them and Leslie outlining her next argument with him in her head. The bartender walked back over, handed Ben his beer, and then handed Leslie her glowing pink cocktail with a smile while he said, “On the house, Leslie.” 

“Oh, thank you.” She smiled at him and then noticed that Ben was looking at her with questioning eyebrows, so she explained, “I’m sort of a gay hero. Last year, I married two penguins at the zoo, and it turned out they were both gay.” 

Ben’s eyes softened at her story and he looked at her with amusement and a hint of admiration in his eyes. “Penguin wedding?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“That’s cute.” 

That made Leslie smile. That’s exactly what she had said last year when everyone was up in arms about the whole thing. She was happy to see that someone else understood it. 

“It was so cute,” she laughed back at him while pulling her drink closer and removing the cherry from the top. She quickly decided that as fun as this little trip down memory lane was, she needed to get back on track. “But enough about how cute it was, why don’t you think I should have the money?” 

“Good lord, really?” Ben laughed as he watched her eat the cherry in her hands while not breaking eye contact with him, proving that she was deadly serious. “Look, when I was eighteen and I became mayor of my hometown, I used every last dollar we had to open a giant winter sports complex. Called it Icetown-“

“And it turned out great and everyone loved it.” Leslie interrupted, kind of hoping her blind optimism could change the past.

“Uh yeah kinda,” he replied, his eyes going somewhere far away, “it was never completed, and I got impeached.”

Leslie frowned. She had a feeling that was where his story was going but for the sake of her argument (and a little bit for his own sanity), she had been hoping she was wrong.

“The newspaper headline was ‘Icetown Costs Ice Clown His Town Crown.’” He continued sadly, the pain of this whole situation clearly still weighing on him, even after seventeen years. 

“Yuck.”

“They were big into rhymes.”

She thought for a moment about Ben’s story. As much as he seemed to see the failure in it, she saw bravery. He hadn’t been afraid of a challenge and he wanted to do something to help the community. It sounded an awful lot like her. Before she could let her cynicism towards his current job get in the way of her emotions, she said, “Well, I don’t know. I think Icetown sounds great. And the point is, at least you tried something.”

Ben looked taken aback at this sentiment for a moment and then smiled at her, his eyes gazing at her in this sweet way that she couldn’t quite decide if she liked or not. “Thank you, Leslie. That…That means a lot.”

She smiled back and tucked some of her hair behind her ear, “You’re welcome. I just always think when you want to create real change, you just have to…go big or go home.” 

He nodded in agreement, still smiling at her. This was the longest conversation they had had without Leslie yelling at him since their 10:30 in the morning beers. It was kind of nice, Leslie thought to herself. But then, a louder voice in her mind reminded her of why she was really here. 

“That being said,” she announced, ceremoniously climbing off the stool, “I am going to go talk to Chris.”

She waded into the crowd of dancing men, leaving Ben as he sat there confused about how she could go from being so sweet and understanding to being so incredibly stubborn and irritating in under three seconds flat.  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Leslie Knope! What a wonderful surprise!” Chris cheered as Ben looked up to find the blonde in question entering their office.

They had approved her Harvest Festival idea two hours earlier so Ben was half expecting her to say that she had the whole thing planned now. If anyone could work that fast and have it still be perfect, it’s her. Which was one of the reasons why Ben decided to go along with this whole Harvest Festival plan. He knew that if anyone could pull this off, it was Leslie. Also, it was financially and socially a great idea for the city, but it was the Leslie of it that had him saying yes without a second thought. 

“Hi Chris,” Leslie smiled at him, shifting her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, “I just wanted to come up here and speak to you for a moment.”

“Of course, what can I help you with?” Chris said, gesturing for her to sit down. 

She took a seat in front of Chris’ desk and sighed uncomfortably before saying, “I wanted to apologize for the other night. For the whole date with Ann originally being a setup. I know she came to talk to you and apologize and that you guys are going to go out again but what I did was stupid and immature and selfish, and I see that now. Basically, I am just so truly sorry, and I hope you can forgive me.”

Without a second thought, Chris grinned, “Leslie, no apologies necessary, although I do truly appreciate it. It is great that you’re here right now though.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I was going through your proposal packet for the Harvest Festival and I think it would be a great idea to set you up with a financial advisor for the festival. Someone who can help you out, keep tabs on the finances, run the numbers to keep track of the budget.”

Ben’s ears perked up hearing this job description, but he stayed quiet. That wasn’t what he was supposed to be there to do. 

“That’s an excellent idea, Chris.” Leslie replied.

“Thank you. Now I was thinking, there is a man named Jacob in the city planning department who I think would be-“ Chris began.

“I’ll do it.” Ben blurted out before he even realized he was speaking.

Leslie turned all the way around in her seat to face him and smiled brightly, “Really?”

Her words from the other night about Icetown rang in his ears. At least you tried something. She was right. He needed to stop fearing anything that wasn’t budget cuts. This could be his first step. “Yeah really. I mean the only work Chris and I are really here to do now is to make sure that our budget plan is carried out properly, so I have the time for it.”

Chris looked at Ben with a proud twinkle in his eye, “Alright that settles it. If it’s okay with you, Leslie, Ben will be the official financial advisor to the Harvest Festival.”

Leslie studied Ben, something in her eyes looked confused and cloudy for a moment but then she broke out into a full grin and said, “Of course!” 

She jumped out of her chair to her feet giddily and began to run out of the office, while saying, “Okay well we don’t have much time, so we have to start planning! I will run downstairs and go get my first of fifteen binders that I created already for the festival. Ben, I am looking forward to fighting with you about 90% of my ideas.” 

While this statement probably should have frightened Ben, he found himself just laughing at how excited she was. This was going to be good, he could just feel it.


	4. Flu Season

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of Ben Wyatt, "good lord." This chapter was an absolute monster. It has a lot of Ben's POV in it because this is clearly a big episode for him as he figures out that he likes Leslie for the first time. I added in a cute little scene with him and Ann because honestly, in my head canon, Ann knew he liked Leslie from the beginning. She sees all the reasons why Leslie is amazing so she would clearly be able to spot someone else who did as well. She's the OG Benslie shipper. So anyway, I hope you enjoy my take on Flu Season. Please give kudos and comment if you are enjoying the story and let me know what I can work on!
> 
> As always, I do not own Parks and Rec and anything from the episode is not my original work.

Planning the Harvest Festival with Leslie turned out to be the most exciting thing Ben had ever done during his twelve years with the state government. Sure, the hours were long with Leslie insisting they come in every day at 7:00 am to get in a two-hour brainstorming session before work and him always managing to stay late when he would find her working in her office well after 5:00 pm and decide he wanted to help. But the work they were doing felt worthy of all his time and energy.

They had crafted their plan perfectly with every step outlined and highlighted like a recipe to create the ultimate event. The first of these steps would be a meeting at the Chamber of Commerce to get local businesses to sign on to contribute to the festival. The newly discovered optimist in Ben felt like this was going to be a piece of cake. Leslie was charming the hell out of every vendor they visited, especially J.J. of J.J.’s Diner, and her presentation, which she had practiced for him roughly forty times, was stellar. However, the cold hard numbers state auditor in Ben was worried because if she didn’t get at least eighty businesses to sign up tonight, the entire Harvest Festival would be dead on arrival and there was nothing he could do about it. 

Everything needed to go smoothly and there would be nothing to worry about, he thought to himself as he headed into her office for their 2:00 meeting with Chris to finalize the details for tonight. And it would, he was almost sure of it. 

As he entered, he noticed that she was bundled up in a thick winter coat and a bright pink scarf like she was about to head out and was immediately confused, “I’m sorry. Are you leaving? I thought we had a meeting.”

She looked up at him apologetically and he noticed that her bright blue eyes seemed to be distant and watery as she said, “No, we do. It’s just...I think it’s a little chilly in here.”

“Are you okay? Your eyes are glassy.” He questioned, not believing for one second that being cold could cause her to look this unwell.

Chris walked in behind him, took one look at Leslie, and grabbed Ben’s arm in fear as if she was holding a knife at them. “Oh my god. Oh my…is she…is she sick? Are you sick?” he asked, panic rising in his voice with each question.

“No.” Leslie sighed.

“Yeah, she’s sick,” Tom called from across the room, causing Ben and Chris to turn and look at him. He looked absolutely insane wearing a motorcycle helmet with the shield down as he explained, “That’s why I’m wearing this and misting myself with hand sanitizer.”

“I’m not sick,” Leslie argued, clearly getting more irritated with each question. “I just have allergies, okay? I took a Claritin and I threw that up. So I took another one, I threw that up. And then I took a third and it stayed down, I’m getting better.”

Ben was no doctor, but he was fairly certain that allergies did not make people violently throw up allergy pills, so he took a step forward and placed his palm on her forehead. He was slightly startled by how hot it was, he wasn’t even completely sure how she was currently speaking to them with how high her temperature seemed to be. 

“All right, you’re burning up,” he announced.

“You’re burning up…what?” she retorted. 

Chris nervously announced that his body was like a microchip, so he desperately needed to get out of there, but Ben barely noticed as he was calculating how he was going to get Leslie to go home for the day. He decided to try a basic approach first, turning to her and saying, “Leslie, go home.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t go home. I have to get ready for the Chamber of Secrets," she protested while rifling through some papers.

“Commerce.” 

She looked up at him, fear clouding up her glassy eyes, “If this meeting does not go perfectly, then the Harvest Festival’s gonna be over before it began. I cannot go home.”

Ben thought for a moment, knowing that urging her to go home wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Maybe if he got her to the hospital to get checked out, they would have to admit her and she would really have no choice but slow down so he offered up, “Okay, then who is your doctor?”

“Ann’s my doctor,” she replied, her eyes shining with admiration for her best friend, “and she’s the most beautiful nurse in the world.”

Perfect, he thought to himself. Ann would admit her in a heartbeat when she sees how bad Leslie looks right now. He helped her out of her desk chair and grabbed her bag as he helped her walk out of the office, scared that if he didn’t keep a hand lightly on her back that she was pass out.

“Oh god. Now I’m hot. Now it’s really hot in here.” She whined and began to take off her scarf.

“Okay, well that’s your fever.”

She threw the scarf down on the ground in front of April’s desk as Andy exclaimed, “Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the thing up here and it says you could have network connectivity problems.”

Ben nodded politely at Andy’s diagnosis and walked Leslie out of the office. She was fairly quiet as he led her towards the exit, and he wondered for a moment if it was weird that he was taking his coworker to the doctors but then he took another concerned look at Leslie’s face and knew he was definitely doing the right thing. 

“Okay, come on, we’re almost there,” Ben encouraged as he continued to lead Leslie towards his car. By this point, she was absolutely boiling and had removed her winter parka, the sweatshirt she had on under that and the blazer she had on under that until she was just in her blouse. She was handing him each layer to hold as if they weighed fifty pounds each and were covered in acid.

“I….I am doing my best,” she struggled, “but seriously, I’m fine, Ben, let’s go back and we can wack-a-mole this thing out of the universe.”

He chuckled at her proving his point by displaying an inability to form cohesive sentences and just kept walking. As they closed in on his Saturn, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys.

“Ooooo I want to drive!” Leslie exclaimed, grabbing the keys from his hand and pushing the buttons, unlocking and relocking the car with each click. “Let me drive!”

“I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”

“But…I’m a great driver…” she whined, still holding the keys, “I will prove it to you.”

And before Ben could even process what was happening, she took off towards his car. “Leslie!”

Since she was clearly very sick, she didn’t make it to the car very quickly and he caught up to her easily as she was pulling on the trunk’s handle. She had put the keys down on the roof of the car so he grabbed them before she could claim them again. He placed a hand on her back for some support, and so she wouldn’t take off running and guided her to the passenger seat. He opened it up, helped her inside, and ran to sit on the driver’s side. 

“Ben,” she whispered in a small voice as he got into the car, “I’m….so….cold…”

He grabbed her blazer from the pile of discarded clothing he was still holding and leaned over to wrap it around her shoulders. She continued to shiver so he then placed her winter coat over her lap and threw her sweatshirt in the backseat in case she needed it. She rolled her head on the headrest and looked over at him with determination in her eyes, “Okay let’s do this.”

“Do…what…exactly…?” He asked nervously.

Then, she held up her hands in front of her near the dashboard and started to move them as if she was operating a steering wheel. “I’m driving us to the hospital so that you can see I’m fine and we can go back to work,” she replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

Ben put his hands on the actual steering wheel and began to back out of the spot while playing along with her fevered delusions, “Okay, Leslie, you drive us there.” 

“My pleasure, good sir,” she replied in a slight British accent.

Yeah, there was no way in hell she was going to be able to give that presentation.  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Well, just as he suspected, Leslie had the flu and insanely dehydrated. He had come to peace with it during their car ride over to the hospital and knew that he could give a presentation worthy of winning over the Chamber of Commerce. He did stuff like this all the time, he had assured her.

Ann had taken Leslie back to admit her as he paced in the hallway for about twenty minutes, unsure whether he should leave or not. He wasn’t exactly well-versed in the art of bringing a flu-ridden coworker to the hospital. Just as he was getting ready to depart, he spotted Ann coming out of the room she had brought Leslie into, looking exhausted and flustered.

“Hey,” Ann said walking up to him, “I finally got her into bed, and she seems to be resting. Thanks again for bringing her in.”

Ben ducked his head down and smiled, “Oh it’s no problem. I had a feeling something was up with her this morning at J.J’s but when I felt her forehead at the office, I just knew she had the flu.” 

“How’d you get her to come to the hospital anyway?” Ann asked, leaning up against the wall for some relief to her tired feet.

“Oh well, I just told her that she should see you to get checked out. I knew that she would’ve never left if I told her she was going to get admitted.” Ben said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Ann nodded and gave him a knowing grin that made him blush slightly, “You really understand her.”

“Huh?”

“Oh nothing,” Ann backtracked awkwardly, “you just really seem to get her, like you knew what she was doing with my date with Chris and you knew how to get her here. It’s nice for her to have someone in the office like that.”

Ben wasn’t completely sure what she meant but he had to admit to himself, he had a pretty good track record in the science of understanding Leslie Knope. He wasn’t about to gloat about this to her best friend though so he nodded and said, “Well…I’m glad I could help her out…I…uh…should get back and work on this presentation. When Leslie wakes up and starts freaking out about everything, tell her to call me. Bye, Ann.”

Ann said her goodbyes to him and watched as he walked away. Even in her deliriously tired state, she could tell that boy had it bad for her best friend. He just didn't know it yet.  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Leslie’s eyes fluttered open and she jolted awake. Where was she? What time was it?

She glanced around the room nervously, trying to jog her memory as it slowly began coming back to her. She was in the hospital. She had the flu. Ben brought her here. She had the Chamber of Commerce presentation tonight. Oh god!

She leaned down and found her bag on the floor next to her bed, reached in, pulled out her notebook that had all her plans for tonight written inside, and began to flip through the pages. Nowhere in her plan did she count on herself being bedridden with the flu. 

“Leslie put your work away and try to relax,” Ann said sternly, entering the room.

“Ann, I can’t relax. This is the biggest meeting of my entire career and I need it to go well.”

“It will go well. Ben assured you that he could handle it, and I have total faith in him. Just focus on getting better.”

“Oh, Ben! That’s it!” Leslie exclaimed, reaching over and grabbing the hospital phone.

“What are you doing?” Ann asked, clearly annoyed.

Even in her fevered state, Leslie knew Ben’s extension number from the numerous calls she made to him every day with questions and thoughts about the Harvest Festival so she dialed it as fast as she could. Her fingers were shaking a little and she didn’t want to tell Ann, but she was pretty sure the phone was actually a seashell. Or at least that’s what her mind was telling her it was. “I’m calling Ben. I need to make sure that he had everything planned out perfectly.”

Ann threw her hands up in surrender, “Alright, if that is what it is going to take to get you to rest, then fine, call Ben.” 

Leslie barely registered Ann leaving the room as the phone began to ring.

“Ben Wyatt?”

“Oh hello there Ben.”

“Leslie, what’s going on? I kind of assumed you would be sleeping right now.”

Leslie laughed as if he just told a joke, “Absolutely not. Okay, so let’s, um, talk about your opening remarks. Do you want me to write you a rap? I’ll write you a rap. No, you know what? You’re never gonna be able to pull it off. You’re too white. How about a show tune or something?”

Ben sighed on the other end of the phone. “I was just…uh…planning on introducing myself…non-musically…and then get everyone to refer to their packets, and uh, blah, blah, blah.”  
Leslie tensed up. Did he think this was some kind of joke? First of all, musical introductions were incredible. And second of all, she needed to know every detail of what he was about to do. “No. No ‘blah, blah, blah,’ okay? You need to go over every single detail with me.”

“Leslie, I promise you I won’t half-ass this, okay?” Ben assured her. “Now get some rest.”

“I have some good news. I think my fever just broke.”

“Goodbye,” Ben said, hanging up without giving her a chance to argue.

She put the magical talking seashell back down on the side table and began to plot her escape. She was going to that meeting come hell or high water.  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Leslie waited until Ann was on her dinner break to make her great escape. She grabbed her clothes from the chair in her room, threw them on as quickly as possible and checked the mirror in the bathroom to make sure she looked okay. Her reflection kind of looked all blurry and strange but she deemed it acceptable and poked her head out into the hallway to see if the coast was clear. 

When she decided it was safe, she began slowly creeping down the hallway, trying to locate April’s room. Peering creepily into every patient window she passed, she finally saw April lying in bed, reading a magazine with a giant teddy bear behind her. Leslie had to take a moment to remind herself that the bear was definitely stuffed and not real and about to attack her.

“Hi there April!” She chirped happily.

“Leslie, what are you doing here?” April replied, clearly too weak and tried to be annoyed by Leslie’s cheer like she usually was. 

“Oh well I just wanted to visit you, girlfriend,” Leslie stumbled awkwardly, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Ann told me you were admitted.”

“Oh…well…that’s interesting because…” Leslie started until she looked down at the tray over April’s lap, spotted her dosage of flu medicine and grabbed it. She threw the pills in her mouth and downed it with some water that was also on the tray.

“What are you doing?” April asked, sitting up.

“I…just…I need this right now!” Leslie exclaimed, running towards the door. “If Ann asks, you didn’t see me!”

She took off running down the hall until she found Chris’ room. She hurried in, walked up to the table next to his bed, grabbed his medicine, and took it.

“Leslie?” Chris said weakly. “Is this a dream? Are you a ghost? What is happening?”

“Nothing, I just need this medicine,” Leslie said quickly as she sped out the door. “Don’t tell Ann!”

She didn’t even wait for Chris’ response and ran down to the lobby. As she pushed open the doors to outside, a wave of nausea hit her, but she kept soldiering on. She was not going to miss this meeting. She needed to be there. Her career was on the line.

She spotted a cab waiting out front, opened the door, and slide inside. “Hi, can you take me to this address?” she asked, handing the cab driver a piece of paper she had torn out of her notebook earlier with the Chamber of Commerce’s address on it in case she forgot it like she was forgetting right now. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ben had spent the rest of his day since dropping Leslie off at the hospital preparing for his presentation, no thanks to Tom. He was actually feeling fairly confident that was he wasn’t going to let Leslie down and he would be able to take on any curveballs the local business people of the town could possibly throw his way. That was until a familiar voice called out, “Ben Wyatt, hello!”

He turned, knowing who it was before he even looked but silently hoping he was wrong. He wasn’t, of course. Leslie Knope in all her fevered glory was walking up to him. “Uh, hi, Leslie,” he answered, incredibly confused as to how she even got there. There was no way Ann would have discharged her.

She took his hand and shook it, not noticing Ben recoiling at how hot her hands were. It felt like touching a hot stove. “Good to see you!” she said as if it was just another day at the office.

“You too.” Ben replied, adding for emphasis, “Wow, you’re really burning up.”

“Can I get some money for the cab I took over here, please?” Ah, so she broke out of the hospital.

“Sure, how much?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, “I looked at the meter and it had Egyptian hieroglyphics on it. Do you know the exchange rate?”

He shook his head no, both at her question and at the fact that she was here in the first place, but she continued on, “So should we do this?”

Before Ben could try to remind her that she needed to be back at the hospital, a concerned look appeared on her face. “Uh, oh…be careful.”

“What?”

“The floor and the wall just switched.” She replied, acting like he should have noticed that too. “Walk very carefully.”

He followed behind her as she walked cautiously towards the conference room. There was absolutely no way in hell that this was going to end well for her. 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Ben scanned the room nervously as more and more people kept filing in. They had a better turnout than he and Leslie had originally hoped for but instead of this being a victory, it now filled him with terror. 

He understood where Leslie was coming from, the Harvest Festival was going to make or break her career. He knew that she desperately wanted to oversee every single aspect of the planning process and put her best foot forward every step of the way, which is why he backed down and let her get on the stage against his better judgment. As she directed Tom, who had finally returned from his spa day with 25 vehicles for the festival in tow, to go up and introduce her, he began to have second thoughts about that decision. 

He turned to her, not even trying to hide the concerned expression on his face, and said, “I can’t let you do this, Leslie.”

“Hey, this ain’t your call, McCluskey.” She slurred back to him and narrowed her eyes to show that she meant business.

He sighed and tried to think of ways that he could do damage control for whatever she was about to go up there and say. If she went up and introduced herself as Leslie Monster and welcomed them to Nightline, they were absolutely screwed. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard Tom announce, “It is now my great honor to welcome to the stage, the woman responsible for the entire Harvest Festival. Ladies and gentlemen, Leslie Knope!”

Ben turned quickly in his seat towards Leslie, hoping that she would give him the okay to go up and present. Her eyes were even glassier than they were earlier in the day and he could physically feel how hot she was from her fever. 

“Are you okay?” He tried to ask but she shook her head at him, so he placed a hand on her shoulder encouragingly and let her go up to the podium.

He could physically feel a panic attack coming on as he watched her open her padfolio slowly and start studying what was inside. He leaned forward in his seat so that he could jump up at the ready to intercept the presentation when she started saying nonsense or catch her if she started passing out, whichever one happened first. 

“Every one of you, just by showing up here tonight, has already made history,” she began in a clear, steady voice, “In days past, the Harvest Festival was the cornerstone of Pawnee’s small-business community. A weeklong showcase for everything from textiles to small farms.”

As she continued on, discussing the projections of facts and figures she and Ben had worked out in the weeks prior, he couldn’t help but stare in awe. How was she doing? She couldn’t get out a full sentence all day with slurring her words or bumbling about something and now she was speaking better than most experienced politicians he had heard. She glided over the phrases of her speech like they were poetry and even though it was fairly boring bureaucratic language, it was honestly some of the most inspiring words Ben had ever heard. It was absolutely amazing. She was absolutely amazing.

She ended her speech with a flourish and everyone in the room clapped but no one as hard as Ben. He had truly never seen anything like that in his life. That was…a flu-ridden Michael Jordan at the ’97 NBA finals. That was…Kirk Gibson hobbling up to the plate and hitting a homer off of Dennis Eckersley. That was…that was Leslie Knope.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ben lowered himself into his car and sighed happily. That meeting couldn’t have gone any better. The businesspeople of Pawnee had eaten up Leslie’s speech and he had a list of 110 businesses signed up for the Harvest Festival to prove it. 

His phone buzzed briefly in his pocket and he found a text message from Tom saying, “Got Patient Zero back to the hospital, hope all went well after we left.”

Ben smiled and typed back, “Yeah it went great, will tell you about it tomorrow. I want to tell Leslie the news first.”

As he drove home, he thought about how excited Leslie was going to be when he told her the news. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face, her bright blue eyes lighting up, her smile brighter than the sun. 

Naturally, he was going to go to the hospital to tell her the news in person. Should he bring something? Maybe he could make her some homemade chicken soup, he knew his family’s recipe like the back of his hand. Maybe he could see if the manager of his motel would let him borrow the kitchen for an hour or two tonight…

And then all at once, his train of thought came to a grinding halt. 

Oh god. He liked Leslie. Like really really really liked her. 

Sure, he had thought she was cute the day they met and had begun to enjoy his time with and volunteered to help with the Harvest Festival, but it wasn’t until tonight, when he watched her up on that stage, that he realized that Leslie was an incredibly special woman. 

Part of his brain told him that maybe visiting her at the hospital and bringing her soup would be a little too forward and he needed to proceed with caution now that he was aware of his feelings for her. The last thing he needed was to make it awkward between them while they were working together if she didn’t feel the same way. Plus, he was leaving soon anyway. Despite this, he found himself taking a left turn towards the grocery store on his way home to grab the ingredients he needed.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

In a bizarre attempt to rationalize his own thinking, Ben ended up going to J.J.’s and grabbing Leslie an order of waffles with extra whipped cream before heading over to the hospital. He knocked on her door awkwardly, soup and waffles piled in his hands, and entered the room smiling at her, excited to tell her the news. 

“Oh hey!” She greeted, sitting up to talk to him. She looked a thousand times better than yesterday, health-wise. He always thought she looked pretty.

“Hey there,” Ben said, walking into the room, “I got you, uh, some waffles here, courtesy of J.J.’s Diner, and chicken soup courtesy of me.”

Without a second thought, Leslie leaned forward and took the waffles from his hands, “I’ll take the waffles, thank you.”

Typical, he thought to himself. He then tried to hand her the soup uncomfortably, thankful that she was too distracted by her waffles to notice how nervous he was. This newly discovered crush was making him stress out already. He decided to place it on her side table to prevent any further embarrassment.

“So how did the rest of the meeting go?” She asked as she methodically set up her waffles.

“Um, well, you said you needed eighty total businesses to participate?”

“Yeah?” she said nervously, her eyes flashing with fear.

“We have 110…and counting. So, uh, nice work, Leslie.” 

The smile she gave him at this news was well worth the hour and a half he spent psyching himself up this morning to go tell her this information in person. “Nice work to you too,” she replied, happily.

He began to back out of the room, remembering that Chris had asked to speak with him while he was there while stammering, “Oh…uh….left the chicken soup there…just in case. It’s an old family recipe. It’s not a big deal but..”

Her eyes softened at him and she replied, “Thank you for that.”

“Okay.” He said, spinning around to smile excitedly at her. His heart speeding up a little bit at the smile on her face. Unsure what else to say, he walked out of her doorway and down the hall to Chris’ room.

Ben entered the room to see Chris getting dressed in his running clothes. “Got your message, what’s up?”

“I got a call from the boy’s upstairs and they have a new assignment for us.”

Panic started to rise in Ben’s throat. He couldn’t leave yet. “Okay…”

“Yeah and I feel like we should ask for an extension to stay here.”

“Yes definitely.” Ben replied quickly, but then quickly backtracking, so he didn’t look too suspicious, “You know the Festival thing’s getting pretty huge, and uh, couple of loose ends that need tying up.”

Chris pointed back at him emphatically in agreement. “Good so I’ll make the call, then, to get the extension?”

“Yeah,” Ben insisted, “they need our help.”

“For the loose ends.”

“Great.”

“Good.”

Ben watched as Chris ran out of the hospital room for his light 15k and smiled to himself. He wasn’t sure what this extension was going to help him accomplish but he wasn’t ready to walk away from Leslie Knope just yet.


	5. Time Capsule

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was so hard for me to come up with an idea for this chapter but I'm actually really happy with how this turned out. I wanted to give Ben some more reasoning for why he's so curious about Leslie's dating history in the next episode. I also just wanted to show where Leslie's head is at because in my opinion, she doesn't start falling for him until the Harvest Festival and doesn't fully realize it til Fancy Party. But Ben is pretty much just crushing hard from Flu Season. Please leave any comments on the things you liked, please leave kudos if you haven't already! Either way, thank you just for reading, I am really enjoying writing this story. I have so many ideas written out in my phone that I can't wait to write!
> 
> As always, I do not own Parks and Rec, any of the characters or the dialogue I used from this episode or any previous episodes.

It was late Thursday afternoon and Ben could not be happier that it was almost Friday. This week had been absolutely insane for him. He had a ton of budgetary meetings, a bunch of gaps to fix in his original citywide plan and he needed to get a new financial spreadsheet done for the Harvest Festival as soon as possible. On top of that, he was pretty much flying solo this week because Leslie was busy dealing with the time capsule situation and Chris was…helping Andy the shoeshine guy win over Ron’s assistant April, apparently. Not really as important as making sure Pawnee’s economy didn’t collapse again but Chris seemed to think it was, so Ben was swamped with work. 

He headed into the Parks department’s office looking for Leslie, hoping to just ask her a few quick questions about the plans she had sent him earlier in the week. On his way down, he had stopped and grabbed himself a coffee because four o’clock was usually when he was feeling the most rundown and needed that extra caffeine boost to get through the day. And since he had noticed that Leslie also seemed to exist on this schedule, he had grabbed her a coffee too. And made sure he put in her usual twelve sugars, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. (Leslie apparently kept City Hall’s coffee bar stocked with all of her necessary sugary items at all times.)

Ever since Ben had figured out that he liked Leslie two weeks ago, he had been trying to keep things extremely casual. He didn’t want to freak her out in any way and ruin their working relationship, especially since they needed to work together a lot for the Harvest Festival. But coworkers bring each other coffee, right? And have each other’s coffee order memorized…right? Wow, he was already terrible at this. 

He walked into Leslie’s office to find Tom, Donna, and handcuffed “Twilight” obsessed weirdo discussing something called the Volturi. He waited for a lull in their spirited debate to ask, “Hey guys, um…where’s Leslie?”

Tom turned to him, clearly annoyed that Ben was interrupting their deep conversation, “All this Twilight talk pissed her off so she’s working in the conference room.”

Ben nodded, left the room without another word, and entered the conference room. Leslie was sitting at the table surrounded by dozens of papers, files, and pens. She was staring at the screen on her laptop and chewing on the end of her pen in thought. She’s so pretty when she’s so focused, Ben thought to himself. But then he remembered that she was always focused, but then again, he thought she always looked pretty too so that made sense. 

“Hey,” he greeted awkwardly, not wanting to startle her, “I had a few questions about this memo you sent me earlier in the week about the Harvest Festival. Sorry, I’m just getting to it now, I’ve been swamped this week. Plus, I figured you could use a little pick me up.”

He slid the coffee towards her, and she took it, smiling up at him, “I really did, thank you.” Then she took a sip and her eyes grew wide, “Did you put chocolate in this?”

“And whipped cream.” He added, smirking at her.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely, “This day…this week…has been so difficult and annoying.”

“Yeah, I noticed that guy is still chained in your office. What happened to calling security?” He asked as he moved to sit down in a chair across from her. 

“Well,” Leslie sighed, “we did but then he started screaming and crying and I figured he would give up eventually, so I told them to just leave him. Clearly, I was wrong.”

“Good lord, that’s insane,” Ben remarked.

“Tell me about it. And now I’ve got to figure out some way to get this guy off my back so that we can do this time capsule thing in peace and I can get back to working on the Harvest Festival.”

“Has he given you a reason as to why he is so insistent on having this particular book in the time capsule?” Ben asked after a moment. 

Leslie cocked an eyebrow at him, “No, why?”

“It’s just…” Ben sighed, thinking for a minute about how to phrase this, “People tend to usually have a reason for doing the things that they do, you know?”

“Like what?” she pressed. 

“People don’t usually do things like this, put themselves out there like that unless they have a deeper reason.”

He swore for a second he could actually see the wheels in Leslie’s head turning and he panicked for a second that she would now read into him memorizing her coffee order as something else…which obviously it was but he didn’t need her knowing that. Before he could even start going down that spiral, she reached forward and grabbed the copy of Twilight that Ben hadn’t noticed earlier was sitting on the table. She opened it to the first page and her eyes lit up. 

“Ben,” she exclaimed, jumping up from her seat, “oh my god, I have to go do some research! I think I have this guy figured out but I need to make sure before I say anything. I gotta go, there’s some stuff I need to go look up on Alta Vista and in the school records. Bye!”

And like a flash of lightning, she was gone and Ben was in the conference room alone. He still had a bunch of questions to ask her about the Harvest Festival but he figured those could wait until tomorrow, especially since she seemed to have a solution in sight for this Twilight dilemma. He got up to head back to his office and smiled to himself when he noticed that she had taken the coffee he brought her with her in her mad dash. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The “crackpot convention” was turning out to be just about as big of a disaster as Ron had warned her it would be, but Leslie was not going to give up easily. At this point, they now had ten…make that eleven…different time capsules filled with various memorabilia from Pawnee residents and no one seemed to be backing down. Feeling exhausted and frustrated, Leslie called for a ten-minute recess. She needed to regroup and figure out how she was going to fix this situation before an all-out brawl took place in this rec center.

She sighed, thinking out loud, “This time capsule’s tearing this town apart.” Then she turned to her right, remembering that Ben was sitting next to her, and said, “You’re leaving soon. Can I blame it on you in the press?”

It was kind of an odd thing to be asking him for permission for, she thought to herself, considering that just a few weeks ago, she would have easily just done that without a second thought. But the Ben sitting next to her at this public forum, intently listening to people beg to put their pet’s ashes or their baseball cards into a city time capsule was very different from the Ben she called a jerk when he first got here or even the Ben who caught her crashing Ann and Chris’ date. This Ben seemed to just want to help people which was pretty much all she had wanted from him in the first place.

“Sure,” he replied, looking out at the ragtag group of community members who they had been fighting with for hours, “Well, I got to say, I think it’s kind of impressive. I’ve been to a lot of towns, usually, people don’t care about anything. I mean, don’t get me wrong, these people are weirdos…but they’re weirdos who care.”

Leslie smiled at him, he finally seemed to understand the essence of Pawnee. The very thing that kept her loving this town so much. They truly were weirdos who cared, and she loved that about them. 

Then she thought about one of the first conversations she and Ben ever had, back in his office during the shutdown, when he told her that Pawnee wasn’t special. That had wounded her a bit more than she cared to admit at the time. At that moment, she had sworn to herself that she would never trust Ben because he would never understand her or this town but now here he was reminding her exactly why Pawnee was special. 

When it came to friendships, Leslie tended to be a black and white person. Either she trusted you or she didn’t. And at this moment, she realized that she really trusted Ben and considered him a friend. It was like her mind mentally crossed his name off of her list of people to be wary of and added him to her list of friends. If she didn’t have so much on her plate at the moment, it would be a much more monumental development. 

Reflecting on his words, she gasped excitedly and called for everyone at the forum to listen to her. She finally had an idea for how to save the time capsule. 

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….......

It was only twenty minutes into the movie and Ben was already getting bored. Leslie and the Parks Department had set up a movie night in Ramsett Park on Saturday night as a kind of celebration for resolving the time capsule issue. Tom and Donna had insisted that the movie had to be “Twilight” in order to keep with the theme of the week and it seemed to be a good choice because people had turned out in spades to sit on lawn chairs, get some snacks from food trucks and watch a brooding sparkly vampire fall in love or something like that. 

Leslie had had the brilliant idea to sell tickets for the event in order to raise some extra money for the Harvest Festival and since the event basically cost them no money to put on other than renting the movie, they had made a pretty good profit. And since this was now technically a fundraiser for the Harvest Festival, Ben felt like he absolutely needed to be there as the festival’s official budget manager. Yes, that definitely made sense. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that coming to sit through this teen vampire movie offered him a chance to see Leslie outside of work on a Saturday night. Not at all.

Before Ben could stop himself, he audibly yawned. Since he was directly behind Leslie’s chair, she turned around to look at him, smiling, “Enjoying the movie?”

He leaned forward a bit so he could talk quietly, he was kind of afraid of getting yelled at by Tom, “I just…why is the whole thing completely blue-toned? It’s so hard to see.”

Leslie giggled, “I was just wondering that myself…also, why does the vampire look so angry all the time?”

“I have no clue,” Ben said, looking up at the movie and then back to Leslie, “Maybe it was like…an acting choice?” 

Before she could answer, Tom yelled from in front of her, “Ben! Leslie! Shut up or get out. I am trying to watch a cinematic masterpiece.” 

Leslie rolled her eyes at Tom’s comment but kept herself turned towards Ben, “Hey, do you wanna go grab some ice cream from the Mr. Softy truck? That’ll buy us a few minutes away from the movie.”

“Yeah…yeah, sure!” Ben replied, trying desperately not to seem too eager. 

They both extracted themselves from their chairs and walked next to each other silently to the edge of the lawn so that they didn’t disturb any other “Twilight” fans watching the movie. Ben may not have understood the hype, but he knew if someone were to walk and talk right through his “Star Wars” marathons, he would not be happy.

As they approached the line to the ice cream truck, Leslie turned to him and asked, “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

“Vanilla probably.”

Leslie stared at him, clearly deeply offended by this answer. “Vanilla? Seriously?”

“What? It’s a solid flavor,” he defended, “it’s dependable and consistent and most places make a good vanilla so there are no surprises.”

“Wowww,” she laughed, “that is the most typical Ben answer I could imagine.”

“Okay, then what is your favorite flavor of ice cream?” he asked, noting in his head how close they had started moving towards each other.

“Well,” she started, taking a deep breath like this was a life or death question, “it truly depends. If it’s soft-serve ice cream, it has to be chocolate with chocolate sprinkles. Or a chocolate-dipped cone if it's from Mr. Softy. But if it’s regular ice cream, it’s probably birthday cake flavor or cotton candy, topped with whipped cream and sprinkles, of course.”

“Obviously,” Ben interjected, laughing at her sugar obsession.

“And if it’s Ben and Jerry’s, which is the superior ice cream, in my opinion, it has to be Half-Baked. The regular kind. None of that frozen yogurt stuff. Ann tried to get me to eat that type and it was horrible.”

Ben just smiled at her. Of course, she would have a list of every possible ice cream flavor she enjoys, categorized by type. Realizing that he may have been smiling down at her too long, he turned his head and saw that it was their turn to order.

“What can I get you?” The elderly man working the truck asked them.

“I’ll get a vanilla milkshake, please,” Ben asked, then he turned to Leslie, “What do you want?”

“Oh, I got it for myself, you don’t have to pay for me,” she fumbled awkwardly, trying to take a step back from the window.

“No it’s fine,” he insisted, “I owe you for that beer back in May.”

“Okay, thanks," she smiled softly at him and stepped up to the window, "I’ll have chocolate soft serve cone dipped in chocolate, please Milton.” 

“Coming right up, Leslie,” Milton replied. 

“You’re on a first-name basis with Mr. Softy?” Ben asked her, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Yeah well, a few years ago, Sweetums was trying to petition that we open ice cream shops in all the parks with their products in them. It would’ve killed the ice cream industry in the town so I helped a few of them get together and form a plan to present to the city council that effectively killed Sweetums’ plan. Milton’s been driving this truck since I was a little kid, it didn’t seem right for him and the other ice cream truck workers to be out of a job.” Leslie said.

She really was unbelievable, Ben thought to himself. Everything she did just impressed him more and more. 

A few moments later, Milton handed them their ice cream, Ben paid and they took off walking aimlessly around the perimeter of the crowd. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to go back to watching the movie but she was just eating her ice cream cone and hadn’t mentioned going back so he wasn’t going to push the issue.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I was really impressed by your solution for the time capsule situation,” Ben said, sipping his milkshake in an attempt to hide the proud smile he knew his face was forming.

“Oh yeah?” She said as she came to a stop and looked up at him with those big blue eyes.

“Yeah, it truly was the perfect solution for the problem. Plus, you won’t have crazy guys handcuffing themselves to a pipe in your office every time they want something…hopefully.”

“I don’t know about that, it really could happen again,” Leslie laughed, and then she paused for a moment, her face getting a little more serious, “But, you actually deserve some credit for my idea.”

“I do?” Ben asked, confused.

“When you told me how Pawnee is filled with weirdos who care, I just started thinking about the future of this town and the legacy we will leave for future generations, and honestly, if the legacy we leave is that we’re weirdos who care, then I think we did a pretty good job.” She said sincerely.

He smiled at her, feeling very proud of himself that he was contributing, even in the slightest bit, to her good ideas rather than being the person tearing them down for once. “Well, I’m glad I could help you. It was really all you but thanks.”

“Well, your words inspired me so thank you too. I’m really glad that we’ve become friends.” She said, turning back towards the crowd to see what was happening on the screen and eating her ice cream happily.

Oof. Friends. Obviously, the rational part of Ben’s brain knew that if she saw them as anything, it was simply as just friends but hearing her vocalize it really sucked. But then he thought about it for a second. He barely knew this woman. This was one of three times they had hung out outside of work and it was still at a work-related event. For all he knew, she could be in a relationship with some guy. It’s not like that would have really ever come up in any of their discussions about the Harvest Festival or the Parks budget or Pawnee’s future. He was really jumping the gun on this one by assuming that she was just as single and available as he was. 

He suddenly realized that he hadn’t answered her because he was so deep in thought so he awkwardly replied, “I’m glad that we’re friends now too. It’s a lot nicer than arguing all the time.”

She jokingly rolled her eyes at his response and gestured in the direction of their chairs, “Should we go back and sit down and try to get through the rest of this movie?”

“I guess we should.”

When they got back to their seats, Leslie handed him her ice cream cone for a moment, grabbed her chair, and sat it directly next to his. “The only way we’re going to get through the rest of this movie is if we make fun of it.” She explained as she took her cone back and sat down.

He plopped down in the chair next to her and they spent the next hour and a half laughing at the bad dialogue and joking about how terrible the acting was, ignoring the dirty looks Tom was sending them both. It ended up being possibly the best night Ben had had since he got to Pawnee and definitely the most he had laughed in a long time. Those damn sparkly vampires really did seem to bring people together.


	6. Ron and Tammy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I'm back! So sorry for this long delay from this story and my other one! I got so sidetracked with school and finals and the holidays. But I have a bunch of chapters pre-planned and ready to go. I hope people are enjoying this story/exploration deeper into the show. Please leave kudos or comments if you are enjoying what you're reading so I can give you all more or less of stuff! Thank you for reading my work either way, I appreciate it endlessly that anyone would even click on this!!

“Okay, so we’re good on the caramel and candy apple carts?” Leslie asked, reading down her list.

“Uh-huh,” Ben replied, looking at his own.

“And the cotton candy machines?”

“Yup, finalized the pricing on them with Sweetums this morning.”

“And the guy who makes lifelike sculptures of animals out of chocolate?”

“As I’ve told you seven times, he is out of our budget,” Ben sighed, “and also he lives in Poland and is 98 years-old.”

Leslie shook her head at him, “I don’t know, I really think we have the chance to offer this man a trip of a lifetime.”

Ben just smirked at her and went back to his spreadsheet, shaking his head in laughter. He met with Leslie every single morning in her office to go through a list of what things needed to be accounted for in the Harvest Festival budget and what tasks they still accomplish to do. It had quickly become his favorite part of his day as it was typically just the two of them, laughing and working, over coffee in the empty Parks Department offices. 

“So,” Leslie started, reading down her list in Harvest Festival Planning Binder 71B, “Tom is on the brink of closing the deal with Sweetums for the plus size roller coaster and you’re going to meet with them on Thursday to make sure the finances are in order for that, Donna is calling all the local news stations and papers to get us booked for a press junket next week and April is calling all of our food vendors today to make sure they got my email with their finalized festival locations.”

“Sounds good,” Ben replied, “That just leaves us with one more big thing we really need to do.”

Leslie raised an eyebrow at him to continue. “The city won’t let us have the festival unless we get the police to agree to come and supervise it. Kind of like security. Just in case anything happens.” Ben explained.

“Oh I know,” Leslie groaned, “I don’t know what it is about big outdoor gatherings that make everyone want to urinate all over everything, but it does…and they do.”

Ben laughed in agreement, “The thing is, we don’t have enough money in the budget to pay them to do this, so we have to ask them to volunteer.”

Leslie chewed on her lip, a habit Ben had recognized she did when she was thinking hard. Not that he was paying that close of attention to her or anything. “Oh! I’ve got it. We can throw them a pizza party and then me and you can go and ask them, and they’ll be so happy and filled with pizza and beer that they’ll say yes!”

“A...a party?” Ben stuttered, “A party filled with cops?”

“Well yeah, that’s kind of who we need to impress right now,” Leslie said, “Why?”

“Oh…no reason…” Ben said, focusing on the notebook in his lap. There was no issue except that he was going to have to go to a party for a bunch of cops and he was deathly afraid of cops. He had kind of been hoping that Leslie and Tom could handle getting the police to volunteer on their own while he very very far away from the entire situation. 

“Okay well, I will call Chief Trumple now and see if we can organize it Wednesday night at Hurley’s. Sound good?”

Ben just nodded shakily in agreement as Leslie grabbed the phone and started dialing.

***

“I knew this was going to happened,” Leslie breathed shakily as she white-knuckled her steering wheel. 

“You knew Ron was going to get arrest with his ex-wife for public indecency?” Ben replied incredulously from her passenger seat.

Since they were stopped at a red light, she turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow. Was he nervously babbling about calzones in a different cop filled bar last night? Did he not see Tammy slap Ron across the face? 

Taking her silence as an answer to his question, Ben continued, “So what’s your plan here, Knope?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed frustrated. She knew she was going to wring Tom’s scrawny little neck the next time she saw him but that was the furthest into the future she had planned at the moment. “I have to ask the Chief to pardon him, obviously.”

“Leslie…” 

“Ben, seriously, I can’t just leave him there. Plus, imagine the media circus that would happen when Tom and I do interviews next week. Having the Parks Director with a criminal record for public sex isn’t exactly the kind of family-friendly image we’re planning here.” 

Ben sighed, rubbing his hands over his face, “I know, I know.” 

“Look, men in uniform love me. Hopefully, it will be a quick thing and Trumple will let him out without me even asking. It won’t even be a favor, I will try and pay the bail.” Well, she was pretty men in uniform loved her still. They all did when she was with Dave, but it wasn’t like she had been hanging around any precincts since he moved to San Diego a year ago. 

“Okay,” Ben said, uneasily, “let’s just go hear them out and see what they have to say. Hopefully, you’re right.”

They pulled into a parking spot in the lot and Leslie turned off the car, looking over at Ben as he visibly tensed up looking at the police station in front of him. His weird fear of cops was kind of endearing to her…when he wasn’t ruining her chances of making a deal with his strange infatuation for the worst dish in the history of Italian cuisine. 

“Thank you for coming with me,” she said sincerely as she unbuckled her seatbelt and grabbed her purse from the backseat. 

“Oh it’s no problem,” he laughed nervously, pulling himself out of the car. 

“Alright,” Leslie said, bracing herself for the absolute worst, “let’s do this.”

Ben followed behind her, his nervous energy making him spazzy and jumpy whenever they saw a cop. Which being that it was a police precinct, they saw a lot of. They told the front desk that they were there to see Chief Trumple in regard to Ron Swanson and the Chief appeared to their left, bringing them wordlessly down to the holding cells. As soon as they saw Ron, cornrows in his hair, kimono around his shoulders, making out passionately (and grossly) through the bars with Tammy, Leslie knew that her favor from the Chief now needed to be getting Ron out of this jail cell and making sure this didn’t go on some sort of permanent record, especially since Ron’s bail was almost $7,000. And that her next favor was going to be asking them to turn the other way when she murdered Tom later.

***

Ben sighed loudly, filling the silence of his car up with his frustration. He should be ecstatic, he just finalized the financial details with Sweetums for the plus size roller coaster for the festival and managed to negotiate their price down by 15% what he and Leslie had originally budgeted for. This gave them a lot more room in their budget for the incredible corn maze Leslie wanted to have built using only organic, Pawnee-grown corn. 

But at this point, all of his efforts were probably for nothing since they quite literally couldn’t have the festival without the police force volunteering and Leslie had had to waste her favor with Chief Trumple of getting a dirty-kimono-wearing-middle-of-his-mustache-missing-from-“friction” Ron Swanson out of jail. He knew from the moment they were told that Ron was in jail that morning that Leslie was going to do exactly what she did, she cared more about her friends than anything else in the world. It was something he really loved about her. But her selflessness was kind of shooting the entire Harvest Festival in the foot and Ben was not about to let this thing fail. 

Leslie had worked too damn hard on this whole thing for it to just fall apart because Tom was a bit immature and Ron apparently couldn’t control himself when he entered the vicinity of his ex-wife. 

As Ben started his drive back from Sweetum’s to City Hall, where Leslie was apparently currently holding an intervention for Ron as her earlier text message had informed him, his phone began to ring. He reached down to answer, assuming it was Leslie with an update, and placed it on speakerphone. 

“Hey, how’s the intervention going?”

“The what?” A familiar voice laughed back at him. 

“Henry, hey man, sorry I thought you were someone from work,” Ben laughed, happy to hear from his brother after almost a month. They texted from time to time, but the Wyatt family was not one to keep in constant contact with each other.

“And why exactly is someone from work holding an intervention?” Henry asked.

“To get this guy away from his…” Ben realized quickly that the entire story was way too ridiculous to explain in a quick phone call and decided to store it away for the holidays when he and his siblings get drunk and exchange funny work stories in order to avoid listening to their parents argue, “You know, what I’ll tell you another time. What’s up?”

“Oh not much, same old shit as always. Georgia’s been bugging me that we got to get out of this apartment and move into a house soon since we’re…uh…thinking about having kids.”

This immediately lifted Ben’s mood. “Dude, that’s great! I hope it works out for you guys. And let me know if you need me to look into anything finances-wise when you guys start trying to buy a place.”

“You know I will, Benji,” Henry was never shy about utilizing his brother’s knack for numbers, “So how’s all the state auditing going? You in a new town yet?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Chris and I actually asked for an extension to stay in Pawnee.”

“Really?” Henry asked, clearly intrigued. Ben understood why, he had never in twelve years asked for an extension to stay in a town.

“Yeah, Chris is dating this woman and they seem to be hitting it off. He’s actually heading back to Indianapolis in like two weeks though. I’m going to stay for a bit longer though. I sort of have this big project I’m working on.”

“Oh, some big nerd numbers thing that I wouldn’t understand?” Henry joked.

“No actually,” Ben laughed in reply, “I’m helping plan this giant festival for the town with the Parks and Recreation department.”

Henry was silent for a moment, processing Ben’s words. “Is…that…even in your job description?”

Ben was suddenly very thankful this was a phone conversation because he began blushing. “Not really but I guess it could be since if it fails, we are eliminating the Parks department to make up for the loss.”

“Oh shit, high stakes,” Henry mussed, “Wait a minute…wasn’t that girl who gave you a bunch of trouble in the beginning in the Parks Department?”

Fuck. Ben had momentarily forgotten his Miller Lite induced rant of a phone call he had made to Henry after he had tried and failed to apologize to Leslie at the Snakehole Lounge. “Uh yeah, she is. Her...her name is Leslie.” 

“So if she’s such a pain in the ass, why are you staying and working so hard on something with her?”

Ben’s face was now full-on crimson. He hadn’t said that he liked Leslie out loud to anyone yet. How could he exactly? _Hey Tom, that’s a cool tie. By the way, I’m like head over heels about your boss. Is she single? Would she maybe want to date me?_

“Well it turns out she really isn’t a pain in the ass,” Ben said, smiling to himself, “and she is has really brilliant ideas and she can make people want to participate in local government just by giving a speech because she’s that passionate. I mean she got over 125 local businesses to participate in this festival through a speech that she gave while she had the flu-“

“Dude, hang on a second, is that why you called Mom at like 11 at night asking for Grandma’s chicken soup recipe like a month ago? Because she called me the next day in a panic that you are working yourself to death.” Henry interjected, a smile clearly on his face. 

“Uh…yeah…kind of…”

“Holy shit, you’re in love with her,” Henry exclaimed.

Ben’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “I wouldn’t say I’m in love with her…”

“Oh because you typically make soup for flu-ridden coworkers and take on huge projects that have nothing to do with your job description whatsoever?”

“Okay so I may have feelings for her,” Ben mumbled, “but it doesn’t really matter. I know nothing about her personal life. I mean I know she’s not married or engaged but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a boyfriend, or she just went through a serious breakup or something.” 

“So get to know her personally,” Henry replied matter-of-factly.

“I don’t want to overstep any boundaries or anything. We’re colleagues and we seem to work pretty well together, I don’t want to ruin that.”

“Ben, how long has it been since you’ve been in a relationship?”

Ben sighed, doing the depressing mental math in his head, “I don’t know…me and Elizabeth broke up almost two years ago now.” 

“Then you need to get back out there!” Henry practically yelled, “Look, I’m not saying you rush into the office today and tell her you love her. Just ask her to dinner, even as friends, get to know each other better.” 

Dinner as friends. He could do that. They had shared takeout Chinese food over Harvest Festival spreadsheets last week. They could up it to going to a casual restaurant together. But he couldn’t give his brother the full satisfaction that he had persuaded him. “I’ll think about it.”

“You better. I don’t even wanna think about the last time you got laid.” Henry laughed.

Ben was definitely not about to tell him that depressing statistic, although there had been a few flings since his relationship had ended two years ago. Henry quickly changed the subject away from Ben’s (lack of a) sex life to tell him about things at his job. 

When he had hung up with Henry, he was stopped at a red light and noticed that he was a block away from the police station. He couldn’t ask Leslie out to dinner while simultaneously panicking that the festival was going to fail. With a shaky sigh, he switched lanes and heading down to the police station. Leslie was busy trying to fix Ron, the least he could do was try and fix this mess with the cops.

Ben took a few deep breaths as he entered the building, trying to remember the yoga techniques Chris was always going on about that promoted a clear and calm mind. A receptionist had pointed him in the direction of Chief Trumple’s office and he had quickly made his way down the hall, trying to avoid eye contact with any of the other officers milling about. Wait, did that make him look more suspicious? Should he look them in the eyes? No, then they might know something…even though he has literally never broken any laws.

He knocked tentatively on the Chief’s office door and opened it, “Excuse me, Chief. Sorry to interrupt.” 

“Hey, Calzone Boy, what’s up?” the Chief replied, still focusing on his work.

Ben laughed uneasily, “Well, here’s hoping that nickname doesn’t stick. Right?”

The Chief didn’t even glance up, so he decided to just cut to the chase and make this less painful for the both of them. “But that’s not why I’m here. Uh…Leslie Knope asked you for a favor this morning but the real favor we need is much bigger.”

“You mean like, calzone-sized?” The Chief replied.

“Ah…sure,” he pushed on, “We need the Pawnee Police force to volunteer as security during the upcoming Harvest Festival. Now the city won’t let us throw the festival unless-“

The Chief held up his hand in response, “Say no more.”

Ben was caught off guard, he hadn’t expected the Chief to say no so quickly to him. Crap, what was he going to do now?

“Just send me a schedule of how many officers you need and when.” He continued.

Okay, that caught Ben off guard even more. “Really? Just like that?” This was kind of a massive undertaking for the force and they wouldn’t be getting paid at all.

“Leslie Knope gets as many favors as she needs.”

“Can I ask why?” Ben smiled.

“Because she’s the kind of a person who uses favors to help other people.” The Chief answered, confirming Ben’s own suspicions about Leslie. “And also, my buddy Dave was the crankiest bastard in the department till he started dating Leslie.”

Oh. Well, that didn’t even bode well for him. “Huh…so she…okay…” Ben stammered, trying not to let his emotions play on his face in front of this incredibly intimidating man who was friends with Leslie’s possible boyfriend. But it was that _possible_ that made him ask, “Are they still dating or…?”

“No. Moved to San Diego a year ago.” 

“Oh…” Ben started moving towards the door but found himself unable to stop talking, “Was it a serious thing or…?”

“What do you care? You a pervert?” The Chief snipped back at him.

Shit okay, he went too far. “Nope. Nope. I’m all good. Um, everything’s fine. This is fine.”

Ben quickly closed the door and rushed down the hallway to leave the building. He couldn’t stop the soft smile that was forming on his face. The festival was saved and apparently, Leslie was single. The rational part of his brain figured that at this point Chris and Ann would’ve probably double-dated with Leslie and any other possible boyfriend she might have. It seemed like the coast was clear. And that was enough for him to decide to keep his promise to Henry. He was going to ask her to dinner tonight, just as friends and feel out the situation.

***

If someone had told Leslie five months ago that the person she felt most grateful to in the world would be Ben Wyatt, she would’ve laughed in their face. But here she was, sitting across from him in a green vinyl booth at JJ’s, celebrating over whipped cream covered waffles (and the boring BLT and French fries Ben had ordered) that the police to agree to volunteer for the Harvest Festival. 

After the day she had had, dealing with Ron and Tom and all of their ex-wife drama, the last thing she had wanted to do was go back down to the station and beg Chief Trumple to give her yet another massive favor, but Ben had dealt with the whole situation without her. Despite his crippling cop anxiety. It was above and beyond what most of her colleagues ever did to help her. She loved her department so much but if she didn’t guide them in the right direction, they tended to flounder without her. But Ben just took charge in her absence and fixed the problem. 

That was definitely a quality she really…appreciated in a person. 

“So,” Ben asked, plucking a fry up from his plate, “what are you most looking forward to once the festival opens?”

“Everything,” she replied immediately, “The Ferris wheel, all of the rides, the corn maze, the food, the people just being happy. I’m so excited for all of it. When I was a little kid, my dad and I would spend at least an hour every year just sitting on a bench and watching how happy everyone at the festival was. That was how I realized how important the government providing services and events like this was.” 

Ben’s deep brown eyes seemed to sparkle in a way she’d never noticed before at her response, “That’s really sweet. I bet your dad is looking forward to doing that again with you this year, huh?”

Leslie inwardly cringed. Mentioning her dead dad was never really a great way to keep a happy and positive conversation going. She barely even brought him up to Ann because it just always made things seem weird and serious. “Oh, uhm…my dad passed away…when I was ten.”

Ben’s eyes widened in horror and he looked like he was about to choke on the fry in his mouth. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s okay,” Leslie waved off, “how could you have known?”

She waited for the uncomfortable silence to set in and the typical wave of questions about how he died and was she okay followed by the typical story of a lost grandparent or uncle as if trying to relate to what she went through. And really she always appreciated people’s efforts to make her feel better, but it was just a sucky situation, and no one could fix that. 

Ben, however, went for a different approach, smiled softly at her, and said, “Well, I’m sure he’d be really happy that you’re bringing the festival back and uh…making so many more people happy.” 

She blushed slightly at his soft tone and the way he was looking at her. He was a really sweet guy once she had gotten past the machete budget hacking jerk exterior that he put on. Plus, he was easy on the eyes. 

Not that she was going to do anything about it. He was her colleague and she had a festival to plan. But still, as a woman, she could appreciate that he was very attractive. 

“What are you looking forward to?” Leslie asked, as she reached forward, stole one of his fries, dipped it in the leftover whipped cream from her waffles, and popped it in her mouth.

“Probably the food,” Ben laughed, “I mean we have a whole area called Deep Fried Boulevard. Being on the road with Chris, I don’t really get a chance to indulge in all that stuff so I’m definitely going to take advantage of the fact that he’ll be back in Indianapolis and won’t be able to lecture me on diabetes or high blood pressure while I eat everything.” 

Leslie laughed at Ben’s enthusiasm over fried foods. He sounded like a kid excited that his strict parent was letting him roam free. “Why is Chris heading back to Indianapolis anyway? I thought you two were partners.”

“We are,” he replied, “Chris is heading a town called Snerling that doesn’t really have a ton of issues so they’re sending him alone. He doesn’t really need me to play bad cop, it’s pretty cut and dry work. Plus, I requested to stay and help with the festival. I’m really having fun being a part of this and someone needs to manage the budget.”

She jokingly rolled her eyes but she knew he was right about that. If it was up to her, they would’ve been way over budget a long time ago. They would be lost without him. Plus, it made her heart flutter a little bit knowing that he was staying in town to help her finish the festival and that he was enjoying the process as much as she was. “Speaking of the budget, Tom and I are doing a bunch of media appearances next week. Can you tag along?”

“Oh…I don’t know if you want me to do that,” Ben replied, holding up his hands nervously. “I’m not really the best on live television…”

Leslie pouted slightly, “But Ben, we really need you. If someone asks questions about the budget, you’re the numbers guy. Please?”

Ben looked at her anxiously for another moment and then sighed in resignation. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll just have to answer a few questions about the budget. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Exactly,” she smiled back at him brightly and stole another fry.

She decided not to tell him that the Pawnee media was kind of its own special kind of hell. She had seen him ruthlessly discuss budget cuts in front of tons of people over the summer. He was probably just a little uncomfortable having a camera pointed in his face. Most people are. What was the worst that could happen?


End file.
